Members of a well-known Russian metal band, Korrozia Metalla, were arrested by police on Saturday evening during a concert and charged with “propaganda of Nazi symbols”, authorities reported.
• Read also: War in Ukraine: Russia claims capture of new village
• Read also: War in Ukraine: Russian army achieves “tactical successes”
• Read also: Putin did not directly order Navalny’s death, US intelligence says
“Police officers with the support of the National Guard arrested three members of a music group in one of the clubs in Nizhny Novgorod,” the regional police said in a statement.
According to the group’s leader, Sergei Troitsky, the drummer is “in a coma after the attack of three bullies” in Nizhny Novgorod, he published on a Russian social network on Sunday evening.
He had earlier reported a “descent” carried out during the concert, during which equipment, including two spare guitars, had disappeared.
The three members of the group, aged 57, 19 and 42, are accused of “propaganda or public display of Nazi paraphernalia or symbols”, an offense most often punished by a fine or a short period of administrative detention.
Police said they had seized t-shirts and books “bearing prohibited symbols”.
According to the group’s director, Maria Rounova, interviewed by the state agency TASS, the symbols in question are “old Slavic symbols.”
In images of the concert broadcast on social networks, we see the police burst into the hall in the middle of the concert and force the spectators to lie down on the ground, sometimes in a muscular manner.
The cultural sector in Russia is increasingly under pressure from the authorities after more than two years of conflict in Ukraine coupled with all-out repression against dissident voices.
In December 2022, a party for “almost naked” invited participants, organized by Russian celebrities in a Moscow club, sparked a scandal and a criminal investigation, forcing the participants to issue a public apology.
