A St. Petersburg activist has been handed a stint behind bars for displaying an inflated duck from an apartment window during a protest last month.
The yellow duck has come to symbolize corruption in Russia after opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s high-profile 2016 investigation into Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s alleged summer home suggested that it included an exclusive home for ducks.
St. Petersburg police detained Artyom Goncharenko on Sunday for showing a giant inflated duck from an apartment window during Navalny’s election boycott demonstration on Jan. 28, local youth activists said.
The OVD-info police monitoring group cited Goncharenko’s fellow activist Yaroslav Putrov as confirming that police kept Goncharenko overnight because of the inflated duck.
The court sentenced Artyom Goncharenko to 25 days for violating public assembly rules, the St. Petersburg court system announced Monday.
Navalny, who was charged with violating the same public assembly rules for a brief appearance at the Jan. 28 boycott, has been barred from presidential elections in March due to fraud charges his supporters say are politically motivated.
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