Russian political artist Petr Pavlensky, who was freed from jail today after being fined 500,000 rubles ($7,800) for setting fire to the doors of a Russian federal police building last November, says he refuses to pay the penalty. “I won't do it,” Pavlensky told reporters. “Otherwise it's like the ‘Ugroza’ [Threat] act [what Pavlensky calls his act of burning the police headquarters' doors] was carried out on credit, as if I bought it from the FSB [Federal Security Service].”
Pavlensky called on his supporters not to start a collection drive to gather the money needed to pay the fine. When asked why he thought the Moscow court freed him from jail after its ruling, Pavlensky said, “Because it's to their advantage. To show the hypocritical mask of humanism.”
“My thanks to everyone who wasn't afraid. Your support was important. It's not important how this trial ended; it's important that we could show and pull back the curtain on reality. The authorities are clinging on by means of terror. For more than six months, I've had to deal with police surveillance. We have to be careful. Otherwise a prison of everyday life could become a prison of terrorism,” Pavlensky said outside the courthouse in Moscow.
In the early morning hours of November 9, Petr Pavlensky, famous for his unorthodox political performance art, set fire to one of the doors of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in downtown Moscow. Pavlensky described his act as a protest against the "perpetual terror" of Russia's special police and "the reflex to fight for one's own life."
Pavlensky is known for several other outlandish acts that have often landed him in trouble with the police. In February 2014, he set fire to several tires on a bridge in St. Petersburg, in an effort to recreate the scene of the Maidan Revolution in Kiev. In the past, he's also sewed his mouth shut, wrapped himself nude in barbed wire, nailed his scrotum to the bricks in Red Square, and sliced off one of his earlobes with a knife.
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