A professional board of judges in St. Petersburg has recommended for promotion the judge who on November 17 convicted artist Aleksandra Skochilenko of distributing false information about the armed forces and sentenced her to seven years in prison.
In a document dated November 16, the St. Petersburg Judicial Qualification Board recommended Judge Oksana Demyasheva for the position of deputy chairwoman of the city’s Kalinin District Court.
Demyasheva was listed as the only candidate for the position.
The competition for the vacancy was opened on July 10. According to the local news website Fontanka, the appointment is for a six-year term.
Skochilenko -- who usually goes by the familiar form of her first name, Sasha – was arrested in March 2022 for replacing several price tags in a grocery store with statements about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine the previous month. She admitted posting the shelf tags but said she had not committed a crime because they contained no false information.
After being held in custody for nearly 20 months, Skochilenko, who describes herself as a pacifist, was convicted by Demyasheva on November 16, one day before the Qualification Board posted the information about her nomination for promotion.
SEE ALSO: 'Five Tiny Pieces Of Paper': St. Petersburg Artist Sasha Skochilenko's Defiant Final Words In CourtSkochilenko’s case became an international cause celebre, with supporters saying her detention had seriously harmed her health. She reportedly suffers from a congenital heart defect, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
On November 18, more than 100 Russian doctors signed an open letter to President Vladimir Putin calling for her release because of “serious concerns” about Skochilenko’s health.
Weeks after Russia started its ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin signed a law that allows for lengthy prison terms for distributing "deliberately false information" about Russian military operations as the Kremlin seeks to control the narrative about its war in Ukraine.
Article 207.3, which includes a prohibition on calling it a war -- Moscow officially calls it a "special military operation" -- represented a significant new phase in the Kremlin's effort to stamp out opposition to the invasion in Ukraine and clamp down on dissent.