Russia has ordered artist Pyotr Pavlensky to be jailed for 30 days pending trial after he set alight the doors of the feared FSB security service in Moscow in a political protest.
A Moscow district court yesterday ordered Pavlensky to spend 30 days in pre-trial detention until December 8 after prosecutors warned he could flee, pressure witnesses or reoffend, Russian news agencies reported.
Pavlensky in a performance titled Threat in the early hours of Monday poured petrol in front of the wooden front doors of the FSB's imposing headquarters, popularly known as Lubyanka, and set fire to them.
He stood in front of the door holding the petrol canister until a policeman came running up.
Russia later opened a criminal case into vandalism, for which the 31-year-old artist could serve up to three years in prison.
It was the latest in a series of fearless performances which have seen Pavlensky nail his scrotum to Red Square in protest at tight police control, wrap himself in barbed wire and cut off part of his ear lobe.
In court yesterday he called the FSB performance a protest against "the organisation that holds 146 million people in fear."
His lawyer Olga Chavdar had asked for him to be placed under house arrest on bail of 1 million rubles (USD 15,500).
In a passionate speech in court, Chavdar appealed to the judge to see the FSB performance as a work of "actionist" art.
"You need to understand the artist Pavlensky, what is great about him as an artist, why his action cannot be seen as if he were an ordinary criminal, as separate from art," she said.
She called the vandalism charge "absurd."
Meanwhile, judge Marina Orlova said the cost of replacing the door had been estimated at 55,000 rubles (USD 850).
