{"id":90468,"date":"2021-03-23T17:22:58","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T17:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=177643"},"modified":"2021-03-23T17:22:58","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T17:22:58","slug":"claims-of-censorship-as-moscow-book-fair-scraps-appearance-by-navalny-aide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/03\/23\/claims-of-censorship-as-moscow-book-fair-scraps-appearance-by-navalny-aide\/","title":{"rendered":"Claims Of Censorship As Moscow Book Fair Scraps Appearance By Navalny Aide"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

MOSCOW — A Moscow book fair has prompted accusations of censorship after it canceled an appearance by a debut author who is a top aide to jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.<\/p>\n

Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s longtime spokeswoman and a prominent activist in her own right, was set to present her novel Incredible Incidents In Women’s Cell No. 3 at the Non\/Fiction book festival, which will be held at an exhibition space near the Kremlin from March 24 to 28.<\/p>\n

But the book’s publisher, Corpus, revealed that its parent company had given in to pressure by the event’s organizers to withdraw Yarmysh’s appearance from the event.<\/p>\n

“It’s the typical argument,” Corpus chief editor Varvara Gornostayeva wrote in a Facebook<\/a><\/strong> post on March 23. “We need to preserve the book fair at any price, and an appearance by a opposition figure, and Aleksei Navalny’s spokesperson at that, places the fair’s existence under threat.”<\/p>\n

Vitaly Kogtyev, a representative of the book fair, confirmed the decision to withdraw Yarmysh’s invitation in comments to Russian media, though he did not cite a reason. Non\/Fiction did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the event program published on its website<\/a><\/strong> includes no mention of Yarmysh or her book.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n\"Kira\n<\/div>\n


\n<\/span><\/div>

\nKira Yarmysh (left) and Aleksei Navalny arrive for a meeting in 2015.<\/span>
\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The controversial decision comes at a tense time for Russia’s opposition, and specifically Navalny and his regional network of campaign offices. The anti-corruption crusader incited a nationwide wave of protests in January that was brutally suppressed by police, and on February 2 he was sentenced to 2 1\/2 years in prison over a parole violation charge he contends is absurd.<\/p>\n

Since his return to Russia in mid-January after five months in Germany recovering from the effects of a nerve-agent poisoning he blames on President Vladimir Putin, Navalny’s movement has faced a targeted campaign against its activists and coordinators throughout Russia, some of whom are in custody or face criminal prosecution in connection with rallies.<\/p>\n

Last week, Navalny’s award nomination for a series of investigative documentaries revealing evidence of corruption among the country’s top officials prompted a bitter conflict in Russia’s filmmaking community and led the Russian Guild of Film Critics to drop its prestigious cinema prize.<\/p>\n

Yarmysh’s book, about six women who share stories while stuck in a jail cell, came out in the fall. Since February 2, she has been under house arrest pending trial on charges that she and nine other defendants created a risk to public health by promoting the January protests.<\/p>\n

On March 18, a Moscow court extended her confinement by another three months, rendering her incapable of attending the scheduled book presentation even if it had gone ahead.<\/p>\n

Yarmysh faces up to two years in prison if she’s convicted, and she is banned from communicating online. But in a post to her Facebook<\/a><\/strong> account, published by her aides, she issued a scathing assessment of the decision, calling it “base and cowardly” and a case of “direct collaboration with the authorities.”<\/p>\n

“Censorship and self-censorship are among the worst traits of authoritarianism,” she wrote. “This can’t be explained with any virtuous intention to ‘save the book fair’…. On the contrary, silent tolerance of a division between permitted and prohibited writers is what will sooner or later destroy it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MOSCOW \u2014 A Moscow book fair has prompted accusations of censorship after it canceled an appearance by a debut author who is a top aide to jailed opposition\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3433,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107,4,23,24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3433"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90469,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90468\/revisions\/90469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}