Artjom Kamardin
Photo: IMAGO/ITAR-TASS
The 33-year-old poet Artyom Kamardin was sentenced to seven years in a prison camp by a Moscow court on December 28th. The accusation: He stirred up hatred against the armed forces of the so-called Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (including the Russian occupiers in eastern Ukraine) and called for activities against state power. Kamardin took part in a protest reading against the war and mobilization on Triumfalnaya Square in Moscow in September 2022. Readings have been taking place in front of the monument to the Soviet poet Mayakovsky since 1958. In 1961 there were clashes: the organizers were sentenced to five to seven years in a camp for “anti-Soviet propaganda”. The readings resumed in 2009. Kamardin recited his poem “Kill me, militiaman!” there in September 2022, which criticizes state repression and indirectly the war in Ukraine.
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A day later, police stormed Kamardin’s apartment, threatened, abused and arrested him. He was forced to apologize on his knees in front of the camera for his “anti-Russian statements” at the reading, as the opposition media “Meduza” reported. Kamardin is also said to have been beaten by the police and raped with a dumbbell. The poet was in custody for over a year before his sentence was announced. During a trial hearing, Kamardin said, according to Meduza: “They suspect me of inciting hatred, even though I’m not concerned with hatred at all. I am a pacifist, I am against wars, against what we call special operations.
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