ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- A court in Russia's second-largest city, St. Peterburg, has sentenced Aleksandra Skochilenko, a 33-year-old Russian artist, to seven years in prison for using price tags in a city store to distribute information about Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Vasilyevsky Ostrov district court pronounced its decision on November 16 after finding Skochilenko guilty of "distributing false information about Russian armed forces," under Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code, which was bulldozed through both chambers of parliament and signed by Putin in a single day last year.
Dozens of journalists and people who came to support Skochilenko chanted: "Shame! Shame! Shame!" after Judge Oksana Demyasheva announced the ruling in President Vladimir Putin's hometown.
Several municipal lawmakers and noted Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov were among those who were in attendance to support Skochilenko.
Opposition lawmaker Boris Vishnevsky said the court ruling "has nothing to do with law, justice, or humanism."
"This is not a justice, this is a reprisal. Those who called this justice, I hope will be tried one day, though I don't know when that will happen. I hope very much that Sasha (Skochilenko) will be released earlier," Vishnevsky said.
Skochilenko was arrested in April 2022 after she replaced five price tags in a supermarket in late March with pieces of paper containing what investigators called "knowingly false information about the use of the Russian armed forces."
In her final testimony hours before the verdict and sentence were handed down, Skochilenko reiterated her previous statement that her actions in the store were to promote peace.
Prosecutors asked the court last week to convict Skochilenko and sentence her to eight years in prison.
Skochilenko has several medical conditions, including a congenital heart defect, bipolar disorder, intolerance to gluten, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Since her arrest, rights groups have called for her immediate release.
Weeks after Russia started its ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir 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" -- represents a significant new phase in the Kremlin's effort to stamp out opposition to the invasion in Ukraine and clamp down on dissent.
The law envisages sentences of up to 10 years in prison for individuals convicted of an offense, while the penalty for the distribution of "deliberately false information" about the Russian armed forces that leads to "serious consequences" is 15 years in prison.
It also makes it illegal "to make calls against the use of Russian troops to protect the interests of Russia" or "for discrediting such use" with a possible penalty of up to three years in prison. The same provision applies to calls for sanctions against Russia.