A Russian doctor has been convicted of “promoting fascism” for sharing the music video for The Cranberries’ anti-war megahit “Zombie.”
Valery Kochnev, a surgeon and aspiring politician who ran for a seat on the Veliky Novgorod City Council as a candidate for the opposition Yabloko party, was found guilty Tuesday of “displaying extremist symbols” and fined the equivalent of $20. his party said. .
The case revolved around a 2021 post that was published on Kochnev’s “V Kontakte” social media page and was discovered by a prosecutor from the Center for Countering Extremism of Russia’s Department of Internal Affairs.
The post came to light during a review of the social media accounts of all Yabloko candidates in the run-up to local elections, politician Kseniya Cherepanova wrote on Telegram.
“The Russian government increasingly uses the police not to safeguard law, order and public safety, but to stalk and intimidate suspicious people and carry out political repressions,” Cherepanova said.
Russian doctor Valery Kochnev was fined the equivalent of $20 after being found guilty of promoting fascism. Provided Kochnev was charged after police discovered the music video for The Cranberries’ anti-war anthem “Zombie” on his social media page. Redferns
Kochnev’s page shared the 1994 “Zombie” music video, which features images of Nazi Germany in an attack on the horrors of war.
Russian law enforcement officials concluded that the swastikas in the clip constituted Kochnev’s post-Nazi propaganda, even though The Cranberries song is an anti-war anthem denouncing violence.
The doctor’s lawyers had asked for a linguistic analysis of the song, but a so-called “expert” from the internal affairs department stated that he had not analyzed the song because it was “in English.” He also admitted that she was not qualified to do this type of work.
Russian authorities accused Kochnev of promoting extremism because the video featured images depicting Nazi Germany. YouTube/TheCranberriesTV
Kochnev denied even posting it, claiming that his social media account had been repeatedly hacked by cyber-bandits, insisting that he only knew it was on his page when he was accused.
Kochnev plans to appeal his conviction, the Yabloko party said.
Categories: Trending
Source: vtt.edu.vn