A Russian playwright and a theatre director have been located guilty of “justifying terrorism” by a military court docket in Moscow.

Director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petrichuk ended up sentenced to 6 many years just about every for the manufacturing of their engage in The Courageous Falcon Finist.

Loosely based on legitimate situations, the perform tells the tale of Russian females who travelled to Syria throughout the country’s civil war to marry members of the Islamic State team.

The two women’s defence attorney vowed to attraction from the verdict.

Held partly driving shut doorways, the trial heightened alarm about liberty of expression in Russia amid associates of the country’s inventive group.

In addition to currently being jailed, equally women will be banned from “administering internet sites” for 3 yrs right after their launch.

In custody due to the fact May possibly 2023, they will now be sent to a penal colony to serve their sentences, in accordance to Russian information company RBC.

The prosecution said the females had shaped a constructive opinion of IS and prosecutor Yekaterina Denisova argued the participate in contained “symptoms of justification of terrorism”, in accordance to RBC.

At the starting of the demo in late May, Berkovich, 39, and Petrichuk, 44, explained they experienced staged the engage in because they opposed terrorism.

Berkovich mentioned the performance experienced been place on to “avoid terrorism”, incorporating she experienced “absolutely nothing but condemnation and disgust” for terrorists.

“I have unquestionably no idea what this selection of words has to do with me… I have under no circumstances shared any varieties of Islam, radical or or else,” RBC quoted Berkovich as declaring.

Both equally she and Petriychuk taken care of their innocence in the course of the trial.

Speaking just after the gals experienced been sentenced, defence attorney Ksenia Karpinskaya described the hearing as “certainly illegal” and “unfair” and pledged to charm against it thoughthere was “little hope”.

“I want you to know that these ladies are absolutely harmless,” the attorney extra.

Supporters of Berkovich have advised her prosecution was linked to a sequence of poems she wrote criticising Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine.

Russia’s inventive neighborhood has come underneath escalating force from the Kremlin considering the fact that the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Various high-profile Russian artists, writers and journalists have arrive out in aid of the girls, which includes newspaper editor Dmitry Muratov and actress Yulia Peresild.

The perform, which remiered in 2020, gained two Golden Mask Theatre Awards for greatest playwright and greatest costumes.

In current months, Russia has been subjected to deadly attacks by Islamist militants in equally Moscow and Dagestan. The Kremlin has created unsubstantiated tips that Ukraine was included in the two incidents.