Aleksandra Skochilenko

Aleksandra Yuryevna Skochilenko (Александра Юрьевна Скочиленко; born 13 September 1990), also known as Sasha Skochilenko, is a Russian artist, musician, poet, The Paper's former author, and political prisoner.

Skochilenko was detained on 11 April 2022 for distributing anti-war leaflets in a grocery store. She was charged under Article 207.3 part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for "dissemination of knowingly false information about the armed forces of the Russian Federation." The charge carries a punishment of up to 10 years in prison. In June 2022, Amnesty International declared Skochilenko a prisoner of conscience, and the Memorial human rights organization recognized her as a political prisoner. She was named as one of the BBC's 100 Women in 2022.

On 16 November 2023, the Vasileostrovsky District Court in St. Petersburg sentenced Aleksandra Skochilenko to 7 years in prison under Russia's "fake news" law for replacing grocery store price tags with anti-war messages containing information about civilian deaths during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Biography
Skochilenko was born in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia). She is an alumna of the Smolny College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Saint Petersburg State University. She is an author of the Book About Depression (2014), which helped destigmatise mental health issues in Russia. She is an open lesbian and her partner has been involved in publicising the course of her criminal case and the conditions of her detention.

Fine
Skochilenko joined several protests against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. At a protest on 3 March 2022 in the centre of Saint Petersburg, she was arrested and detained overnight. She was fined 10,000 rubles.

Arrest and detention
On 31 March 2022, Skochilenko was arrested for "putting fragments of paper in place of price tags, containing information about the use of the Russian armed forces" in a Perekrestok supermarket. The messages attributed to her included information about the Mariupol theatre airstrike on 16 March: "The Russian army bombed an art school in Mariupol where about 400 people were hiding from the shelling." Skochilenko was jailed for eight weeks pending trial, accused of being motivated by "political hatred for Russia".

Under the recently introduced Russian fake news laws, she faced a sentence of up to 10 years imprisonment if found guilty. In a letter from her jail in April 2022, Skochilenko wrote: "It just so happened that I represent everything that the Putin regime is so intolerant of: creativity, pacifism, LGBT, psycho-enlightenment, feminism, humanism, and love for everything bright, ambiguous, unusual." On 30 May, the St. Petersburg District Court extended her pre-trial detention until July in a closed hearing. In early June, she was temporarily transferred to a psychiatric hospital, where staff refused to treat her for abdomen pain she was experiencing and refused to share information about her condition with her lawyer and partner. On 30 June, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs's Centre for Combating Extremism issued a report alleging that Skochilenko was a member of the Eighth Initiative Group, which it deemed a "radical protest feminist group". Skochilenko denied knowledge of the group. Following those claims, the court extended her pre-trial detention until September.



Human rights groups raised concerns about the conditions of her detention, as she suffers from a congenital heart defect, PTSD, and coeliac disease, the last of which requires a gluten-free diet that she has not consistently been allowed access to, and which has caused her significant weight loss and health concerns during her detention. As well, her partner has been denied permission to visit her while she had been under detention. In a July interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Skochilenko further raised concerns about possible mistreatment, saying that she and the other prisoners in her cell had been forced to completely clean the cell three times a day by hand and the television in the cell was restricted to war films and pro-government news about the invasion.

In June 2022, Memorial designated Skochilenko a political prisoner, whereas Amnesty International declared her a prisoner of conscience.

Despite numerous arguments about the critical state of her health made by Skochilenko's defense at the previous hearing, on 7 July 2023, the judge ordered that she remain in pretrial detention until 10 October 2023.

Verdict
On 16 November 2023, she was sentenced in a St. Petersburg court to seven years of imprisonment for replacing supermarket price tags with antiwar slogans in 2022. In her final statement to the court, before the verdict was announced, she told the presiding judge: "Your honour, you have a unique opportunity to show an example to society with your verdict ... You can show how to resolve conflict with the help of words and compassion."

Exhibitions
From March 31 to April 29, 2023, The Koppel Project in London hosted an exhibition titled "SKOCHILENKO: THE PRICE OF FREEDOM". Curated by the Russian Democratic Society, this event showcased her works, known for their poignant and thought-provoking pieces that delve into themes of freedom, expression, and political activism.