Yulia Tsvetkova, a 26-year-old artist and LGBTQ activist, is now under house arrest and facing up to 15 years in a Russian prison on charges of distributing “pornography” and “gay propaganda,” according a report this week by The Moscow Times newspaper.
A lawyer for Tsvetkova, who lives in the Russian Far East city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, said that the activist and her family have not been told the specific nature of the charges. Attorney Yakov Pushkaryov said only that “some information on Yulia’s social media” triggered the case.
Russian authorities have been harassing Tsvetkova at least since March, when they interrogated her about a series of paintings depicting nude women, accusing the activist of pornography, according to a Human Rights Watch report.
She was later questioned over a performance at the MERAK theater company, a youth theater group which she manages. The performance dealt with gender stereotypes, and was titled Eve’s Ribs, according to a report by the Russian police-monitoring site Ovid. But Russian security services accused Tsvetkova of violating a 2013 law against "propaganda of homosexuality toward minors.”
"It is about pressure, about little boys and girls," Tsvetkova said, explaining the production at the time. "It is about the fact that one's personality is more important than stereotypes."
In October, she was questioned again by Russian authorities over a social media group that featured artwork “depicting vulvas and calls for an end to taboos around vaginal anatomy and menstruation,” according to Human Rights Watch.
On November 20, police questioned her again—and two days later they arrested her on a charge of violating an order to remain in her home city. The police also pressured one of the children who performed in her theater productions to claim “victim status” against her, according to HRW.
The problems for the young activist began last year, when she launched a social media hashtag campaign under the slogan, "A woman is not a doll,” according to a Radio Free Europe report. As part of the campaign, she posted drawings with such captions as, "Real women have body hair, and that is normal,” and "Real women menstruate, and that is normal."
But in March, police questioned her, claiming that they had received complaints about her “pornographic” artwork which was supposedly “corrupting children.”
Tsvetkova is scheduled to go on trial starting December 9.
Photo by Yulia Tsvetkova Facebook
