YouTuber Yuri Khovansky added to Russia’s terrorism blacklist
Rosfinmonitoring (Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service) has added video blogger Yuri Khovansky to its list of organizations and individuals accused of involvement in terrorism or extremist activities.
On the agency’s website, the 31-year-old is included on its blacklist of “Russian individuals” at number eight.
As OVD-Info explains, individuals blacklisted by Rosfinmonitoring face banking restrictions. In particular, Russian banks block their accounts, making it impossible for them to perform any transactions on their cards, take out loans, or apply for jobs.
Yuri Khovansky is a popular Russian video blogger and rapper, who’s YouTube channel has more than 4.4 million subscribers. He was arrested in St. Petersburg in June on suspicion of “publicly justifying terrorism” and jailed pending trial. The criminal case against Khovansky was opened over a song about the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis that he performed during a live stream. The YouTuber apologized for the song following his arrest, calling it disgusting.
Backstory
The Nord-Ost siege
On October 23, 2002, terrorists seized the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow during a performance of the musical “Nord Ost,” demanding the withdrawal of federal troops from Russia’s Chechnya. On October 26, the Russian security forces stormed the theater, after flooding it with knockout gas. According to official data, 130 hostages were killed as a result of the terrorist attack, 119 of whom died in hospital after being freed. The cause of death of many of the hostages has been attributed to the security forces’ mishandling of both the evacuation and transport of hostages to hospitals.