Artyom Loskutov, a contemporary artist who was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International following his 1 May arrest in Novosibirsk, Russia’s third most-populous city, was released yesterday on Sunday. Loskutov has been jailed by Russian police for organizing Monstration, an absurdist parade meant to counteract the country’s official May Day celebrations. This year, participants held signs with messages such as “Lord, forgive us”.
The artist had refused local authorities’ offer to hold the carnival-like procession on a river bank rather than the Siberian city’s center. Formally, he was charged with spearheading a post-march gathering in front of the mayor’s office. After the parade, one court sentenced Loskutov to ten days in prison and another levied a fine of 5,000 rubles (about $96). Loskutov told Dozhd television station that he would be appealing these verdicts, all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary. He said that while serving his sentence, he had read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, about a prisoner’s day in the Soviet Gulag.
Loskutov first created Monstration in 2004 and won an Innovatsiya (Innovation) prize in 2011 for the event. In the past, he has been detained on charges of marijuana possession and found guilty of offending religious believers. “It’s clear that he has been punished merely for using the right to freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly,” read a statement posted on 3 May on the website of Amnesty’s Russian branch.
