Buy Russian Art, Support Russian Protesters

Nick Teplov
Facebook
February 1, 2021

Thoughts from the darkroom:

How can we make posts and likes on social networks more effective?

As an analog experiment, you can buy any* black-and-white photo featured on my Instagram page (@bureau44), which I will print by hand. This can be either a classic print, an indigo twist, or a lithograph print on vintage paper from the 60s-80s (see the pictures here).

The format is 18 x 24 cm.

You can suggest you own price.

I will donate 50% of this amount to OVD Info to help people detained at protest rallies in Russia.

The prints will be delivered by any method you prefer.

This is a limited offer, as they say.**
______

* You must check with me whether a particular negative is available.
** Limited, that is, by my supply of paper and chemicals.

____________________

Yana Sergeeva
Facebook
February 3, 2021

I am signed up make recurring donations to OVD Info and send them as much extra money as possible, but now I want to do something more.

So, if you want to buy my ceramics, write to me. I will give you cups and plates, and you will send the money for them to OVD Info or Apologia for Protest.

Alexandra Vorobyova has made a helpful list of the donation pages of the Russian organizations who provide legal aid and other assistance to people detained while protesting and/or report on these issues. I can personally endorse all of these organizations, whose human rights work and journalism have been featured on this website many, many times in the past.

OVD Info: https://donate.ovdinfo.org/en
Mediazona: https://donate.zona.media/
Open Russia Legal Defense: https://orpravo.org/#help-project
Apologia for Protest: https://apologia.pro/
Team 29: https://team29.org/donate/

Keep in mind that, with the exception of OVD Info’s donations page, the others are in Russian only. It might also be the case that some of them only accept donations from Russian bank cards. However, I was easily able to donate money to OVD Info and Mediazona via PayPal. Write to me if you have questions about how to donate money. And let me know of similar undertakings by artists or anybody else, and I will add their details to this post. || TRR

Hell in a Handbasket

Leonid Volkov
Facebook
July 30, 2019

Everything has gone to hell in a handbasket.

I cannot recall such a concentration of news.

In the last thirty minutes:

The authorities disqualified Sergei Tsukasov in Moscow’s 14th Borough. He won the primaries held there by local activists, collected the necessary number of signatures, and was registered to run as a candidate, apparently because he is not well known to the general public and the mayor’s office did not regard him as dangerous. But after he took part in protest rallies along with the candidates who were barred from running, he was disqualified for the dash he put instead of the phrase “I do not have” in his foreign real estate declaration after a sham candidate filed a complaint against him.
On the other hand, the Moscow City Elections Commission, as if it were having a laugh, recommended putting Sergei Mitrokhin back on the ballot in the 43rd Borough, despite the fact we caught red-handed the factory that had been forging signatures for prospective candidates, including Mitrokhin.
Mikhail Svetov was detained by police right in the Moscow mayor’s office. He had gone there to negotiate (!) a permit for the August 3 protest rally. The crazed crooks in the mayor’s office invited Svetov to the negotiations themselves, and then they helped detain the libertarian themselves, an inconceivable crime against lawfulness anywhere at any time.

Events are unfolding at incredible speed.

Something big is going to happen.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Screenshot of the tweet that got ex-MP Dmitry Gudkov thirty (!) days in jail: “Facebook killed the link to the meeting with Moscow City Duma candidates this Sunday: over 3,000 people had signed up overnight. I’m confident a missing link cannot prevent us from gathering all the same: 2:00 p.m., July 14, Novopushkinsky Square.”

⚡️Tverskoi District Court sentenced Dmitry Gudkov to thirty (30) days in jail for a tweet about the July 14 meet-the-candidates protest event. He was again convicted (under Article 20.2.8 of the Administrative Offenses Code) as the organizer of an “unauthorized” event.

The court dismissed all motions made by Pravozashchita Otkrytki lawyer Oksana Oparenko. She petitioned the court to let her question the police officer who examined Gudkov’s Twitter page and watch the video, shot at campaign headquarters, confirming Gudkov was not at the rally himself.

Source: Pravozashchita Otkrytki, 30 July 2019

Translated by the Russian Reader. Lead image courtesy of The Closet Liberal

Anastasia Shevchenko: 174 Days Under House Arrest for Thought Crimes

“Anastasia Shevchenko has spent 174 days under house arrest.” The boxed caption in the lower lefthand corner (“Criminal Code Article 284.1”) is a reference to the charges on which Shevchenko was indicted. Russian Criminal Code Article 284.1, adopted in 2015, criminalizes “engaging in the work of a foreign or international non-governmental organization that has been deemed undesirable.” Open Russia was declared an “undesirable” organization by the Russian Prosecutor General in April 2017. Shevchenko, an Open Russia activist, is the first person indicted under Article 284.1 since it was adopted. Image courtesy of Pravozashchita Otkrytki, Open Russia’s civil rights project.

Pravozashchita Otkrytki
Telegram
July 16, 2019

The house arrest of Anastasia Shevchenko has been extended again, this time until August 20, 2019.

During a hearing at the Lenin District Court in Rostov-on-Don, the state investigator asked the judge to extend Shevchenko’s house arrest for two months, that is, until September 17, 2019. He claimed there were many forensic examinations that needed to be analyzed. Pravozashchita Otkrytki lawyer Sergei Kovalevich said no new evidence had been entered into the case file during the last six months and no investigation was underway.

The prosecutor supported the state investigator, arguing Shevchenko was a possible flight risk. Pravozashchita Otkrytki lawyer Sergei Badamshin reminded the court, however, that Shevchenko’s foreign travel passport had been confiscated by the state investigator.

The conditions of Shevchenko’s house arrest are the strictest. She cannot go for walks, communicate with strangers, and use communication devices. By comparison, people jailed in Russian remand prisons are allowed regular walks and are not prohibited from communicating with other people.

Translated by the Russian Reader