A schoolgirl from the southern Russian city of Stavropol has been sentenced to 70 hours of community service for writing the name Navalny on a local bus stop, human rights NGO OVD-Info said on Thursday, citing her lawyer.
Russian schoolgirl sentenced to community service for Navalny bus stop graffiti
Snowflakes partially cover the portrait of late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, marking the first anniversary of his death, outside the Russian Embassy in Bucharest, Romania, 16 February 2025. Photo: EPA/ROBERT GHEMENT
A schoolgirl from the southern Russian city of Stavropol has been sentenced to 70 hours of community service for writing the name Navalny on a local bus stop, human rights NGO OVD-Info said on Thursday, citing her lawyer.
Representatives of the district administration, who were named as the plaintiffs in the case, categorically refused to drop the charges and seek reconciliation, asking instead that the schoolgirl receive the minimum allowable punishment, according to OVD-Info. The unnamed schoolgirl was ultimately found guilty of vandalism by a local magistrate.
The schoolgirl was originally detained on 16 February, the first anniversary of opposition politician Alexey Navalny’s death, OVD-Info reported. Though she was promptly released, law enforcement officers came to her parents’ home with a search warrant later the same day and seized her telephone. The defendant was not held in custody during the investigation.
Navalny, who was sentenced to 19 years in prison in August 2023 on charges of extremism, died at a penal colony in the Russian Arctic on 16 February 2024. At least 37 people who came to pay their respects to the politician on the anniversary of his death this year were detained in 15 different Russian cities, according to OVD-Info.
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