Ms. Berkovich, the director, comes from a household of advocates — her mom is a human-rights activist, as was her grandmother, and her father is a poet. On the primary day of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ms. Berkovich was arrested and jailed for 11 days after holding a poster with the inscription “No to Conflict,” and allegedly disobeying the cops who demanded she accompany them to the station. She has additionally written antiwar poetry.
The playwright, Ms. Petriychuk, turned well-known within the Moscow theater world in 2018, when she had her first studying on the Lyubimovka theater competition and started profitable recognition and awards.
Each ladies have repeatedly requested that their detention be modified to deal with arrest. Ms. Petriychuk has scoliosis, a curvature of the backbone, and Ms. Berkovich is mom to 2 adopted teenage daughters. She met them at a summer time camp for orphans, the place she and a few buddies had been serving to younger campers placed on performs for potential adoptive households.
“It’s terrible, it’s very onerous for them,” Ksenia Sorokina, a pal of Ms. Berkovich, stated of the 2 daughters. “This can be a horrible set off for them, to repeatedly lose their dad and mom.”
In April, simply earlier than the trial started, each ladies had been added to Russia’s official checklist of “terrorists and extremists,” freezing their financial institution accounts. The checklist consists of the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, political opposition figures such because the late Aleksei A. Navalny, the “worldwide L.G.B.T motion” and Fb’s dad or mum firm, Meta.
Mr. Dyurenkov, the previous artwork director of the Moscow competition, stated he anticipated extra prosecutions of this type. “As soon as this door opens, it doesn’t shut anymore,” he stated. “That is how the repressive system works.”
@Anastasia Kharchenko contributed reporting.
