Nadezhda Sayfutdinova sewn her own mouth shut before taking to the streets in the eastern city of Yekaterinburg to protest at the way Putin’s government had cracked down on public protest
A Russian woman faces prosecution after sewing her mouth shut in protest about censorship of protests against the war in Ukraine.
Police snatched protestor Nadezhda Sayfutdinova in the eastern city of Yekaterinburg, using “brute force” to try to get her locked in a psychiatric facility.
Ms Sayfutdinova has managed to avoid being sectioned but she is still expected to face prosecution for discrediting the Russian armed forces.
The activist, in her 30s, had sewn her own mouth shut, before taking to the streets of the city in a one-woman protest.
She held up a sign which read: “You cannot keep silent!!! You cannot keep silent!!! The price is our consciousness. War is not peace!!! Freedom is not slavery!!! Ignorance is not power!!!”
Ms Sayfutdinova hit out at the “moral code” in Putin’s Russia which gagged people over the war.
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She told representatives of the OVD-Info human rights group: “My mouth was really sewn with a needle and thread.
“An ambulance was called to the [police] station to inspect the damage and remove the threads.
“I sewed it myself.”
She was taken first to a trauma clinic, and then to the city’s psychiatric clinic No.3. Her lawyer Fedor Akchermyshev and OVD-Info called for public support to secure her release.
They issued a statement which read: “You can ring the clinic’s reception or the prosecutor on duty and demand the illegal detention and forced hospitalisation of Sayfutdinova is stopped.”
She said: “The police treated me without violations, but they called a psychiatric team, which used brute force against me…I refused to go.”
Ms Sayfutdinova added: “One of the members of this team claimed that he was a psychiatrist.
“He told my lawyer that he was useless and insulted him. He told me that I was now restricted in my rights…then they dragged me by force.
“I was in shock – this was punitive psychiatry. It was very scary.”
She was set free after a massive public outcry, adding: “I am very grateful to the people who tried to help me and rang the [clinic’s] reception, demanding to let me go.”
