A prominent Linux kernel developer has been jailed by Russian authorities after protesting publicly in Moscow’s Manezh Square against the conflict in Ukraine.
Dmitry Monahkov was arrested Friday after engaging in a solo protest, speaking to people on the street about Russia’s conflict with Ukraine and laying the blame on President Vladimir Putin. A LiveJournal page linked to by fellow kernel developer Frédéric Weisbecker appears to show four Russian police officers confronting Monakhov and shoving him into a van. Via Weisbecker and another kernel colleague, Theodore Ts’o, the story eventually made it to TheMukt.com.
Monakhov works for Parallels, a business-focused cloud services company based in Moscow. He is primarily known for his work on ext4 and other filesystems.
According to his Twitter account, Monakhov was sentenced to 15 days in prison for disobeying a police officer. It’s not his first arrest for civil disobedience in Russia, as he told Novaya Gazeta in 2013 that he was beaten by riot police during a rally in support of opposition politician Alex Navalny. He was also injured during another protest in May 2011, according to Grani.ru.
Monakhov was active on Twitter at various points during his processing and what seems to have been a very brief trial, giving the location of his court proceedings and musing sarcastically about his prospects of release.
По закону суд в РФ открытый. Так что можно присутствовать на аппиляции. Мосгорсуд. Богородский вал 8. Зал 613. В17.00
— Dmitry Monakhov (@dmtrmon) September 1, 2014
Верхняя инстанция подтвердила полную правоту первой. Еду досиживать 15сут. Родина я люблю тебя!
— Dmitry Monakhov (@dmtrmon) September 1, 2014