World News | Belarus detains Russian father convicted in anti-war art case

TALLINN (Estonia), March 30 (AP) — Belarusian authorities said Thursday they had detained a fugitive single father who escaped house arrest in neighboring Russia shortly after he was arrested for his daughter’s antiwar sketch at school. was found guilty and sentenced to prison.

Alexei Moskalev was arrested in the Minsk region of Belarus, according to Belarusian Interior Ministry spokeswoman Natalia Sakharchuk. Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti and the Sputnik Belarus news site reported her comments, saying he had been detained “at the request of Russian police”.

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Moskalev, 54, drew international attention this week with a case that highlighted the scale of the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent following his conviction and two-year prison sentence. He did not appear in court in his hometown of Yefremov on Tuesday after fleeing the apartment where he was under house arrest the previous day.

Under a law passed shortly after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moskalyov was charged for social media posts criticizing the invasion. He maintained he had nothing to do with the posts during a one-day trial that ended on Monday.

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According to his lawyers and supporters, Moskalyov’s troubles began when his daughter Maria, now 13, drew an anti-war painting at Yefremov No. 9 school in which a missile flew over a Russian flag and said to a woman and child: No War” and “Glory to Ukraine.” The school called the police, the girl was questioned and Moskalyov was fined for making critical comments on social media, they said.

A few months later, his apartment was searched and criminal charges were filed against him. This month, he was placed under house arrest and his daughter was sent to an orphanage.

He escaped house arrest before a court in Yefremov announced his sentence on Tuesday.

He has been declared a political prisoner by Memorial, one of Russia’s oldest and most prominent human rights organizations, which has won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.

A court in Yefremov is expected next week to consider a petition by the authorities to limit the rights of Moskalev’s parents. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the body of content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)