The Ecological Crisis Activists Support Group (ECG) has published a list of social activists who are put under restraint because of their activities. Defenders of Shies Andrei Borovikov and Drevarkh Prosvetlyonnyi (‘The Enlightened’) are among them. The ECG reported this on its website.
Two defenders of Shies, Andrei Borovikov and Drevarkh Prosvetlyonnyi, were included in the list of eco-prisoners, made by the Ecological Crisis Group. It includes people against whom the security forces initiated criminal cases and whom they confined. Borovikov is serving a sentence in a general regime penal colony because he posted a music video by Rammstein on vk.com, and Drevarkh is under travel restrictions in the case of the use of violence against a representative of the power.
The list includes a total of 16 nature protection activists from seven regions of Russia. The group calculates that three people have been convicted and put in colonies, four eco-defenders are under house arrest, two are under travel restrictions. The court committed two more to mental health facilities.
The leader of the list is the Republic of Bashkortostan, five residents of which have been persecuted for protecting a natural monument — Mount Kushtau. In addition to them, the list includes activists from Moscow and Sverdlovsk Oblasts, Moscow and Chelyabinsk.
The Lomonosovsky District Court of Arkhangelsk sentenced activist Andrei Borovikov to two years and three months in a general regime penal colony. He was accused of distributing pornography because he posted “Pussy” music video by German band Rammstein on vk.com in 2014. The Ecological Crisis Group wrote that the activist had been repeatedly persecuted under "Dadin’s" article for participating in unagreed rallies and pickets against the construction of a landfill at Shies.
A criminal case under the article on the use of violence against a representative of the power (Part 1 of Article 318 of the Criminal Code) was initiated against Andrei Khristoforov, more known as Drevarkh Prosvetlyonnyi (‘The Enlightened’), in August 2019. According to investigators, the activist tasered a police officer who tried to detain Drevarkh for stopping a train near the Shies station by triggering an emergency brake valve. Drevarkh said that it was he who had been beaten.
Khristoforov is currently under travel restrictions. For more than two years, the activist has been hiding from the police in Ukraine seeking asylum after being charged with assaulting a police officer in Russia. He was put on the federal wanted list. However, in August, Drevarkh surrendered to the authorities as he came back to Arkhangelsk. The group called Khristoforov a regular activist of environmental rallies. Drevarkh participated in an anti-garbage protest on April 7, went to Shies several times and lived there for a while with other environmental activists.
