Playwright and director setenced to 6 years by Russian courtroom

The play, known as “Finist, the Courageous Falcon,” advised the tales of the “ISIS brides” — Russian girls who traveled to Syria to marry members of the Islamic State terrorist group that they had met on-line. It was based mostly on actual case supplies from interrogations and courtroom verdicts and didn’t catch damaging consideration from legislation enforcement on the time.

The authors have repeatedly acknowledged that the play represents a cautionary story exploring what pushes Russian girls to covert to radical Islam. However through the trial, the state-appointed “professional witnesses” testified that the work accommodates “indicators of radical feminist ideology” and glorifies terrorists, making them seem “fascinating and enticing to women and girls” whereas discriminating in opposition to Russian males.

Throughout a listening to final yr, Berkovich stated the play envisioned “a quite simple and clear concept that dozens of girls in our time turn into random victims of evil.”

The play obtained funding from the Russian Tradition Ministry and was awarded Russia’s high theater prize, known as the Golden Masks.

Since Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Berkovich has additionally written antiwar poems, which her supporters stated would be the motive behind the persecution. Shortly after the beginning of the warfare, she staged an antiwar demonstration and was jailed for 11 days.

The protection plans to attraction the decision, lawyer Ksenia Karpinskaya advised Russian media after the trial. “We are going to, after all, attraction this choice, though there’s little hope. However I would like you to know that these girls are completely harmless,” Karpinskaya stated.

Berkovich is elevating two adopted youngsters and has aged relations whom she fears she’ll by no means see once more, the lawyer added, in accordance with Russian channel TV Rain.

“She stated that she would by no means see her grandmother once more as a result of she wouldn’t stay one other six years at 90. She won’t see her adopted youngsters; we don’t know what’s going to occur to them tomorrow,” Karpinskaya stated. “And he or she in all probability received’t be capable of give beginning to new youngsters due to her age. And each the choose and the prosecutor knew about all of this.”

The trial of Berkovich and Petriychuk marked the primary high-profile prison case regarding a play because the Soviet period. It’s also a part of a sweeping marketing campaign of repression the Kremlin launched in opposition to any voices essential of the warfare or President Vladimir Putin’s insurance policies.

Many artists who spoke out in opposition to the invasion have been fired from state-funded cultural establishments, together with theaters and movie studios, or blacklisted from performing within the nation, with authorities pressuring venue house owners to revoke present permits. Those that have publicly supported the warfare have loved profitable advert offers and options on state tv and have been favored by the Tradition Ministry, which allocates funding for the nation’s largest creative tasks.