ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) -A teenage Russian street musician who has already spent nearly a month in jail after singing anti-Kremlin songs was handed more jail time on Tuesday in a case rights activists say shows how stifling wartime censorship has become.
Diana Loginova, 18, who sings in a group called Stoptime, was arrested in her native St Petersburg last month. She has already been jailed twice after performances in the heart of Russia’s second city where she belted out cover versions of songs penned by Kremlin critics.
A court in St Petersburg ruled on Tuesday she should spend another 13 days in jail on a public order offence. Alexander Orlov, the band’s guitarist and her boyfriend, was also handed another 13 days in jail by the same court.
Authorities in Russia have cracked down hard on critical voices since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022. They argue that society must be as united as possible, at a time when they say it is locked in a proxy war with the West.
Loginova, a music student who performs under the stage name Naoko, was initially jailed for 13 days for a public order offence after her performance of a banned track, the “Swan Lake Cooperative”, by exiled anti-Kremlin Russian rapper Noize MC, went viral on social media.
The Swan Lake track got her into trouble because the famous ballet by Piotr Tchaikovsky is seen as a symbol of political change by some in Russia: it was shown on state TV after the death of Soviet leaders and during a 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet president.
Loginova’s performance of another track disliked by the authorities – “You Are a Soldier” by singer Monetochka, who like Noize MC has left the country and is designated a “foreign agent” – got her into further trouble and saw her fined 30,000 roubles ($369) for discrediting the army.
A court then handed her another 13-day jail sentence for “petty hooliganism” related to her performance near a metro station in central St Petersburg last month.
(Reporting by Reuters,Writing by Andrew Osborn Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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