A yellow duck that landed a Russian opposition activist in jail this week has now taken center stage in a social media campaign to secure his release.
A St. Petersburg court reportedly sentenced Artyom Goncharenko to 25 days behind bars on Monday after he displayed a giant inflated duck outside an apartment window during an anti-election rally last month.
The “Utka 2018” social media account, which promotes itself as a tongue-in-cheek candidate in the Russian presidential elections this month, has called on its readers to join a campaign to free Goncharenko.
“Artyom is very dear to me, to his movement and our campaign team,” the duck account wrote on Russia’s Vkontakte social media website on Wednesday.
The account urged its followers to spread the message so that “they also find out the reasons for which you can lose your freedom in Russia.”
The yellow duck has come to symbolize corruption in Russia after opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s high-profile investigation into Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s alleged summer home said that it contained an exclusive home for ducks.
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