Moscow Activist Jailed for Mooning Police Station

A young Russian activist has been jailed for mooning a Moscow police station in solidarity with a fellow activist who was also jailed for a similar photo op, media reported Tuesday.

Alina Ivanova had been protesting the arrests of model Yelena Nikiforovskaya and photographer Aysel Akhmedova, who photographed Nikiforovskaya posing with pants down in front of a Yekaterinburg police station. Nikiforovskaya and Akhmedova were jailed for three and two days on charges of petty hooliganism.

“They jail you for posters, they jail you for likes, they jail you for opinions, now they jail you for photos?” Ivanova said ahead of her cheeky act Sunday.

“We live in a secular country and Sharia laws don’t apply here. Why the hell were these girls arrested?” she said.

Moscow’s Presnensky district court found Ivanova guilty of petty hooliganism and sentenced her to five days in jail, according to the Sota.Vision news outlet.

The Znak.com news website reported that Nikiforovskaya had posed for similar photos in front of a local parliament building in the Sverdlovsk region. At the Yekaterinburg police station, where she was arrested in late July, the model was wearing a police jacket with the word “Provokatsiya” (“Provocation”) emblazoned across the back.

But in an Aug. 2 interview with the It’s My City outlet, Nikiforovskaya said the photographs were an act of creativity that did not intend to offend anyone.

“We don’t participate in any public organizations or any protests against the authorities or law enforcement agencies. The pictures don’t call for anything,” Nikiforovskaya said.