July 16, 2024

Playwright and Director Sentenced


Playwright and Director Sentenced
Family picture of Yevgenia Berkovich. Courtesy Yevgenia Berkovich.

Theater director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk were sentenced to six years in a penal colony on charges of "justifying terrorism."

Berkovich and Petriychuk have been jailed since May 5, 2023, for the contents of their 2021 play "Finist the Bright Falcon," in which two Russian women are recruited into ISIS. 

Hearings for the case have began June 13, and on July 8 judges heard final statements from each defendant's lawyers and from Berkovich and Petriychuk. A crowd of friends, family, and fellow artists, many of whom have also been persecuted for acts of dissent, gathered in support. 

This is the longest sentence that has been given to female political dissidents in recent years. Varvara Karaulova, a woman who was arrested in 2016 for joining ISIS and who an inspiration for "Finist," received 4.5 years. 

After the sentencing, Ksenia Karpinskaya, one of Berkovich's lawyers, read aloud a poem by Soviet poet Yuri Levansky to the dismayed crowd outside the courtroom: 

  • Each chooses for themselves
  • A woman, a religion, a path.
  • To serve the devil or the prophet -
  • Each chooses for themselves.

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