A teenage busker has been jailed and charged with leading a public rally in which she led a crowd in singing an anti-Putin rock song in St. Petersburg — a rare act of defiance, according to local reports.
Diana Loginova is facing a single administrative charge of organizing an unauthorized public meeting and has been sentenced to 13 days in prison, The Moscow Times reported.
After serving her sentence, Loginova will face an additional administrative offense of “bringing discredit” to the Russian military, Reuters reported.
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A Russian law enforcement officer removes the handcuffs of Diana Loginova, an 18-year-old street musician performing under the name Naoko, who was arrested after publicly singing a government-banned song, in front of a crowd of fans, before a court hearing in Saint Petersburg, Russia. (Anton Vaganov / Reuters)
Loginova, who performs under the name Naoko with the band Stoptime, was arrested on Tuesday after she was previously filmed leading a crowd in singing the lyrics to exiled rapper Noize MC’s hit ‘Swan Lake Cooperative’.
Noize MC, the musician who wrote ‘Swan Lake Cooperative’, is openly critical of the Kremlin and left Russia after the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold his annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, 2024 (ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images)
For its part, Moscow added him to its list of “foreign agents,” which includes hundreds of individuals and entities accused of carrying out subversive activities with support from abroad, Reuters reported.
The song does not refer to Russian President Vladimir Putin or mention the war in Ukraine. It is a reference to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, which was played on television after the deaths of Soviet leaders and during the 1991 coup attempt against President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Diana Loginova, an 18-year-old street musician who performs under the name Naoko, sits in a courtroom for a hearing in St. Petersburg. (Anton Vaganov / Reuters)
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In May, a court in St. Petersburg banned the song on the grounds that it “could contain signs of justification and excuse for a hostile, hateful attitude towards people, as well as statements that promote violent changes in the foundations of the constitutional order.”
