Anastasia Shevchenko, an activist in Rostov-on-Don, recently became the first Russian citizen to be prosecuted under the country’s “undesirable organisation” legislation. On 18 February, she received a four-year suspended sentence for her status as a member of the Open Russia civil society organisation, deemed an “undesirable organisation” by the Russian authorities.
“Why am I guilty? I just want my children and yours to live in a clean and beautiful city, a country where laws and human rights are observed - and where there are no political repressions,” Shevchenko said in her final address to the court, where prosecutors had requested a five-year prison sentence.
Shevchenko’s story is perhaps the most striking – and shocking – in Rostov’s recent history of politically motivated prosecutions.
