Facts: Aleksandra “Sasja” Skotjilenko
Russian artist, writer, filmmaker and activist from St. Petersburg.
Arrested after exchanging price tags for tags with anti-war messages in a supermarket in his hometown in March.
Faces up to 10 years in prison, under the law against “deliberate dissemination of false information about Russia’s armed forces” passed by the Russian parliament in March.
One evening at the end of March, the Russian artist Aleksandra Skotjilenko made a decision. She, who in the summers has worked as a film teacher at a children’s college in Ukraine and who has many friends there, had previously demonstrated against the Russian war of aggression in the streets of St. Petersburg. But after more and more reports of protesters being arrested and beaten, she decided instead to protest in a different way.
She went to one of the stores of the Russian supermarket chain Perekrestok in her hometown of St. Petersburg. There, Aleksandra Skotjilenko replaced some of the price tags with notes on which she had written: “The Russian army bombed an art school in Mariupol where 400 people had taken shelter” and “Inflation has reached the highest level since 1998 due to the military operation in Ukraine. Stop the war.”
New crime
One of the customers saw what the 32-year-old artist was doing – and with the help of surveillance footage from the store, she was tracked to a friend’s apartment, where she was arrested by the police a few days later.
Since then, Skotjilenko has been imprisoned and risks being sentenced to up to ten years in prison, according to the law against “deliberate dissemination of false information about Russia’s armed forces” which was adopted in early March by the Russian lower house, says her lawyer Yana Nepovinnova.
— Aleksandra was arrested only a few days after this criminal classification had been introduced and so far no one in St. Petersburg has been convicted of this crime. But in other places in Russia, the punishments have become very harsh. Those who plead guilty receive heavy fines – and if they don’t, the punishment is prison, says Yana Nepovinnova in a zoom call from St. Petersburg.
“Great concern about Sasja’s health”
Aleksandra Skotjilenko also works as a writer, filmmaker and activist. She has written and illustrated a book about depression and is herself diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Yana Nepovinnova is very worried about her health.
— Aleksandra suffers from celiac disease and cannot eat the prison food, and she has a hereditary heart disease that has worsened during her imprisonment. According to a cardiologist who has examined her, she urgently needs to have a pacemaker implanted. But that is impossible as long as she is imprisoned, she says and continues:
— If it had been a case without political signs, all the medical statements would have led to her being released and able to be operated on. But the case is getting a huge amount of attention from high-ranking figures in Russia’s investigative committee.
Legal experts support the war
The trial against Aleksandra Skotjilenko began in October, but the verdict is not expected until March next year at the earliest. Ahead of the court hearing, in addition to testimony from customers at the St. Petersburg supermarket and surveillance footage, the prosecution had ordered a “linguistic analysis” of the notes left at the store.
— An expert in linguistics and philology and a political scientist were called. Both concluded that the information Aleksandra provided on the price tags was false and that she spread it deliberately – as another version of what was going on in Ukraine was available on the website of the Russian Ministry of Defense. According to the experts, Aleksandra should have read before writing her notes and realized that what she wrote was not correct, she says.
Yana Nepovinnova points out that it is not within the competence of these experts to make such an assessment. They had also signed a petition in support of the “military special operation” in Ukraine – a Russian euphemism for the war – before the trial, she says.
“Worry about the girlfriend being called in”
The imprisonment of Aleksandra Skotjilenko has been noticed by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and a support group has been formed in social media. The media interest has led to her being moved to a better cell, says Yana Neppvinnova. But there is a flip side to that too.
— We are all concerned that the attention surrounding Aleksandra’s case may also have consequences for her closest and her friends. She herself is worried that her girlfriend Sonja, who is medically trained, will be drafted into the war, she says and continues:
– We have also seen cases where lawyers who were considered to be troublesome for the prosecution received a summons order. And we’ve noticed that fewer and fewer people are showing up during the trial. People are increasingly afraid to openly show their support for Aleksandra.