A 17-year-old Russian girl who graffitied “death to the regime” has become the youngest person to be jailed on terrorism charges for speaking out against the war in Ukraine.
Lyubov Lizunova was originally arrested in October 2022 for writing anti-Kremlin graffiti on the wall of a garage in Chita, a city in Siberia, along with her friend Aleksandr Snezhkov, 20.
Lizunova, who was 16 at the time, then faced further charges after it was discovered that she had shared posts on social media urging Russians to sabotage railway lines and set fire to enlistment offices to protest against the war in Ukraine.
After their arrest, Lizunova and Snezhkov were released on bail, according to OVD-Info, a human rights group. But after they were accused of trying to flee abroad, Lizunova was placed under house arrest and Snezhkov was sent to a pre-trial detention facility in January 2023.
Now, Lizunova has also been sent to a pre-trial detention facility, according to Anastasiya Shevchenko, a human rights activist, meaning she is the first schoolgirl to be sent to jail for speaking out against the war, according to Agentstvo, an independent Russian site. The schoolgirl faces charges of incitement of terrorism, extremism and politically-motivated vandalism.
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“The citizens of Chita can sleep safe at night — their children are behind bars,” said Shevchenko, in a post on Instagram.
President Putin has tightened laws on protests and Russian dissidents face disproportionate sentences for even mild displays of anti-war sentiment.
• Putin compares himself to Jesus in battle to uphold tradition
In November, a Russian artist was sentenced to seven years in prison for swapping the price tags in a supermarkets with stickers criticising the war. A month later, two poets were sentenced to five and a half years for reciting anti-war verse in Moscow.
In total, 16 under-age Russians, including four girls, have been charged for speaking out against the invasion, according to OVD-Info.
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They include Darya Kozyreva, who defaced an exhibition in St Petersburg commemorating the city’s relationship with Mariupol by writing: “Murderers, you bombed it. Judas.”
Information about such cases is difficult to come by and human rights charities have been unable to determine for example what happened to three teenagers from Ulan-Ude who set fire to a banner emblazoned with a V, one of the symbols of the war, and shouted “Slava Ukraini”.
