
A Russian court has jailed Kremlin-critic Alexei Navalny's ally to two and a half years in prison on pornography charges. Russia is inching closer to shutting down Alexei Navalny's political network. Regional offices of the network have announced that they would disband ahead of a ruling over whether the network be designated as extremists.
The court in Arkhangelsk, northern Russia, ruled that Andrei Borovikov, a former coordinator for Navalny's offices, had spread pornography by reposting a music video by the German metal band Rammstein.
Borovikov, 32, had pleaded not guilty to the charge, and his defence team will appeal the decision, lawyer Andrei Kychin added.
Opposition news site MBKh Media reported that in 2014, Borovikov had reposted the music video to Rammstein's song "Pussy" on VKontakte, a popular Russian social network similar to Facebook.
The news site said a former volunteer for Navalny's Arkhangelsk offices informed the police about the post in 2019, and charges were brought against Borovikov in September 2020.
One version of the music video depicts Rammstein playing its song interspersed with shots of scantily clad women dancing at a strip bar.
In a second edition, a couple performs sexual intercourse near the end of the clip.
It was not immediately clear which Borovikov had reposted because he has deleted the post.
Amnesty International on Wednesday called the case against Borovikov "utterly absurd.
"It is blatantly obvious that he is being punished solely for his activism, not his musical taste," the group cited its Moscow director Natalia Zvyagina as saying.
(With inputs from agencies)