By Mark Trevelyan
(Reuters) – A Russian comedian has been arrested while trying to leave the country after he was publicly denounced for allegedly mocking war invalids.
In a clip from a stand-up performance that was posted online, Artemy Ostanin told a joke about a supposed encounter with a legless beggar in the Moscow metro.
Investigators opened a case against him at the weekend after Sergei Zaitsev, the head of a self-styled public movement named Zov Naroda (Call of the People), complained that the beggar could be a casualty of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“His jokes, mocking an invalid – essentially our soldier who lost his legs in the special military operation – cross all boundaries of morality and ethics,” Zaitsev said.
Ostanin, in a subsequent online interview, denied the accusations and said there was not a word in the joke about the Ukraine war. But on Tuesday, investigators said in a statement that he had been arrested on suspicion of inciting hatred and debasing human dignity, an offence that carries a jail term of up to six years.
The statement said he had been taken to Moscow for interrogation after being detained at a border crossing. Unconfirmed reports on social media said he had been trying to enter neighbouring Belarus.
His arrest was reported with satisfaction by several of Russia’s widely read military bloggers.
The case illustrates the perils for performance artists of touching on issues that can be construed by the authorities as relating even indirectly to the war. Many writers, artists and directors have fled the country since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
State media reported on Tuesday that Boris Akunin, one of the country’s most popular novelists, had been placed on a wanted list for breaking the law on “foreign agents”.
Akunin, 68, was put on a register of “extremists and terrorists” after condemning the invasion. He now lives in Britain and his books have been removed from sale in Russia.
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Alex Richardson)
