
Andrey Shabanov in court. Photo: endoflaw / Telegram
A Russian saxophonist with severe health problems was sentenced to six years in prison on Wednesday for a series of anti-war social media posts, independent media outlet RusNews reported.
A court in the Volga region city of Samara found Andrey Shabanov guilty of “justifying terrorism” and “calling for the undermining of state security” in his social media posts criticising the actions of the Russian army.
According to prosecutors, in his posts, Shabanov called on Russians to fight against Vladimir Putin and the Russian government by donating to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and the Freedom of Russia Legion, a battalion that fights alongside the AFU against the Russian military, independent media outlet Mediazona reported.
After one of his prosecutors claimed that the court had no documentary evidence of his illness during a court hearing in December, Shabanov, who suffers from severe psoriasis and arthritis, stripped to his underwear to display the severe lesions covering his body and accused the court of “mistreating a disabled person like in Nazi Germany”.
In his final statement to court on Wednesday, Shabanov admitted his guilt and apologised for his “unpatriotic” actions, and asked the judge to give him a lighter sentence so he could continue playing music to support his elderly mother who is unable to work. “If I lose what I love to do, I will wither away,” he said.
In March 2022, Shabanov was fined 60,000 rubles (approximately €575 at the time) for trying to upload a photo of Adolf Hitler to the Immortal Regiment website, which collects photographs of Russian World War II veterans.
Shabanov’s support group wrote in December that his health was deteriorating, with fluid accumulating in one of his finger joints, which could cause Shabanov to lose his ability to play the saxophone. Nevertheless, he had not been permitted to see a specialist while in a pretrial detention, the group wrote.