A Russian doctor has been convicted of “promoting fascism” — for sharing the music video for The Cranberries’ anti-war mega-hit “Zombie.”
Valery Kochnev, a surgeon and aspiring politician who had been running for a seat on the Veliky Novgorod’s City Council as a candidate from the Yabloko opposition party, was found guilty Tuesday of “displaying extremist symbols” and fined the equivalent of $20, his party said.
The case revolved around a 2021 post that was published on Kochnev’s “V Kontakte” social media page — and which was discovered by a prosecutor with the Russian Internal Affairs Department’s Center for Countering Extremism.
The post came to light during a review of social media accounts belonging to all Yabloko candidates in the run-up to the local elections, politician Kseniya Cherepanova wrote on Telegram.
“The government in Russia is increasingly using the police not to safeguard law and order and public safety, but to stalk and intimidate suspicious persons, to carry out political repressions,” Cherepanova seethed.
Kochnev’s page shared the 1994 “Zombie” music video, which features footage from Nazi Germany in an attack on the horrors of war.
Russian law enforcement officials concluded that the swastikas in the clip made Kochnev’s post Nazi propaganda — even though The Cranberries’ song is an anti-war anthem decrying violence.
Lawyers for the doctor had asked that a linguistic analysis of the song be conducted — but a purported “expert” from the internal affairs department declared that she has not analyzed the song because it was “in English.” She also admitted that she was not qualified to carry out this type of work.
Kochnev denied even posting it, claiming that his social media account has been repeatedly hacked by cyber-bandits — insisting that he only knew it was on his page when he was charged.
Kochnev plans to appeal his conviction, the Yabloko party said.