Darya Kozyreva, 19 Years Old, Imprisoned for Quoting a Poem

 

Darya Kozyreva, 19, has been sentenced to nearly three years in a Russian penal colony for quoting a poem and remembering the suffering of Mariupol. Her “crime”? Using words to oppose Putin’s war. Free speech is not a crime: tell that to Putin’s American friends who love to preach about it—until it’s inconvenient. When poetry becomes dangerous, tyranny has already won. Defend freedom. Spread her story.

Commentary: 

All attempts by western media to understand and explain Putin’s resentment and xenophobia toward the West, his intentions and rationalizations for war, such as his all-consuming ambition to restore the Soviet Union, his claim that Ukraine is not a sovereign country and belongs to Russia, his desire to eradicate the Ukrainian language and culture, his desire to aid the Separatists in their autonomy in the Donbas region, and his belief that the minority-aligned fascist militias in southeastern Ukraine and NATO’s eastern expansion are serious threats to Russia’s sovereignty... None of the above can justify Russia's indiscriminate raping, torturing, killing and imprisoning innocent Ukrainian people and the kidnapping of Ukrainian children.  

-Glen Brown