A\u00a0court in\u00a0Yekaterinburg has found an\u00a0anti-war protester guilty of\u00a0using a\u00a0poem by\u00a0avant-garde poet Vladimir Mayakovsky to\u00a0\u201cdiscredit\u201d the Russian military, the independent news outlet Sotavision reported on\u00a0Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Dmitry Rykov, a\u00a0resident of\u00a0Kirovgrad (another town in\u00a0the Sverdlovsk region), was fined for carrying out a\u00a0solo picket in\u00a0Yekaterinburg on\u00a0December 7. He\u00a0carried a\u00a0sign with a\u00a0stanza from Mayakovsky\u2019s poem \u201cDown With It!\u201d (\u201cDoloy!\u201d), which read:<\/p>\n
War is\u00a0a\u00a0wind that reeks of\u00a0a\u00a0corpse.<\/p>\n
War is\u00a0a\u00a0factory for producing beggars.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0grave immeasurable in\u00a0depth and breadth,\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hunger, filth, typhus, and lice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Judge Yekaterina Geiger of\u00a0the Verkh-Isetsky District Court fined Rykov 49,000 rubles (about $600). Rykov pleaded not guilty, arguing that he\u00a0was speaking out \u201cnot against a\u00a0specific war, but any war.\u201d He\u00a0also said that he\u00a0did not understand how this could have \u201cdiscredited\u201d the Russian army.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rykov also faces another misdemeanor charge of\u00a0\u201cdiscrediting\u201d the military for a\u00a0solo protest<\/a> he\u00a0carried out in\u00a0downtown Yekaterinburg on\u00a0December 13. He\u00a0was arrested for picketing with a\u00a0sign quoting the popular Soviet children\u2019s song<\/a> \u201cMay There Always Be\u00a0Sunshine.\u201d Rykov told<\/a> the local news outlet It\u2019s My\u00a0City that he\u00a0was protesting against \u201clies and violence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Yekaterinburg authorities have arrested<\/a> Dmitry Rykov for protesting multiple times. In\u00a0September, he\u00a0was detained for picketing in\u00a0support of\u00a0Darya Kozyreva<\/a>, a\u00a019-year-old anti-war activist arrested in\u00a0February 2024 for taping a\u00a0stanza from a\u00a0poem by\u00a0Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko to\u00a0the Shevchenko monument in\u00a0St. Petersburg. Kozyreva was later sentenced<\/a> to\u00a0nearly three years in\u00a0prison on\u00a0two counts of\u00a0\u201cdiscrediting\u201d the Russian army.\u00a0At\u00a0the time of\u00a0his arrest, Rykov was carrying a\u00a0poster that said, \u201cFreedom for Darya Kozyreva! Poetry is\u00a0not a\u00a0crime.\u201d Local police later released<\/a> him without charge.<\/p>\n A\u00a0prominent figure of\u00a0the Russian Futurist movement, Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote the anti-war poem \u201cDown With It!\u201d in\u00a01929. He\u00a0died by\u00a0suicide in\u00a01930.<\/p>\n \u2018They won\u2019t shut me up\u2019 18-year-old arrested in St. Petersburg for taping a poem by Ukrainian writer Taras Shevchenko to his monument<\/a>\u2018They won\u2019t shut me up\u2019 18-year-old arrested in St. Petersburg for taping a poem by Ukrainian writer Taras Shevchenko to his monument<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\u00a0court in\u00a0Yekaterinburg has found an\u00a0anti-war protester guilty of\u00a0using a\u00a0poem by\u00a0avant-garde poet Vladimir Mayakovsky to\u00a0\u201cdiscredit\u201d the Russian military, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79,15182,15177,15180,15169,15162,15174,15164,15175,15181,15170,15158,15165,15159,15167,15168,15160,15163,15161,15179,15173,15166,15178,15176,15172,15171],"class_list":["post-363622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-15182","tag-15177","tag-15180","tag-15169","tag-15162","tag-15174","tag-15164","tag-15175","tag-15181","tag-15170","tag-15158","tag-15165","tag-15159","tag-15167","tag-15168","tag-15160","tag-15163","tag-15161","tag-15179","tag-15173","tag-15166","tag-15178","tag-15176","tag-15172","tag-15171"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}