Former ‘Team Navalny’ coordinator sentenced to 2.5 years in prison over ‘Rammstein’ video
On Thursday, April 29, an Arkhangelsk court sentenced former Team Navalny coordinator Andrey Borovikov to 2.5 years in prison for sharing a clip of a music video by the German band Rammstein on social media.
Lawyer Alexey Kychin told Mediazona that Borovikov was found guilty of criminal distribution of pronography via the Internet. Borovikov pleaded not guilty, underscoring that the same clip was shared by hundreds of other people on VKontakte. Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence Borovikov to three years in a maximum security prison.
The felony case against Andrey Borovikov was opened in September 2020, over a clip from the Rammstein video for the song “Pussy” that he shared on VKontakte in 2014. The expert examination commissioned by state investigators determined that the music video contains pornographic scenes and doesn’t have “cultural value.”
Andrey Borovikov is the former coordinator of Alexey Navalny’s Arkhangelsk campaign office. In September 2019, he became the third person convicted under the so-called Dadin article. He was sentenced to 400 hours of community service for repeatedly violating the rules on public gatherings.
Russian Criminal Code Article 212.1
This article was added to the Russian Criminal Code in 2014. It outlines criminal liability for a fourth violation of the rules on public gatherings in a 180 day period, which is punishable by a fine, correctional or mandatory labor, or up to five years in prison. In 2015, activist Ildar Dadin became the first person to be convicted under this article — he was sentenced to three years in prison, but had his sentence revoked in 2017.