Updates with Berkovich’s arrest.
Russian authorities have opened a criminal “justifying terrorism” case over theatre director Yevgeniya (Zhenya) Berkovich’s award-winning play about Russian Islamic State brides, her mother said Thursday.
Berkovich’s mother, activist Yelena Efros, said the case was opened in connection with the play, “Tiercel the Brave Falcon,” which tells the stories of real Russian women who arranged online marriages with members of the Islamic State terrorist group and looked to escape to Syria to join their husbands.
Berkovich was detained in Moscow on Thursday and was interrogated by Investigative Committee officers, the OVD-Info rights project reported.
Her lawyer Yulia Tregubova later confirmed to OVD-Info that the director was under arrest as a suspect in the case.
Police carried out searches at Efros’ house and at the St. Petersburg apartment of Berkovich’s 88-year-old grandmother, writer Nina Katerli.
“I don’t know how the search in my house is connected with a play that is on in Moscow. My granddaughter lives there and rarely visits [me],” the St. Petersburg-based news website Fontanka cited Katerli as saying.
The play’s author Svetlana Petriychuk was also detained at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, according to OVD-Info. She was later released after being questioned as a witness.
“Tiercel the Brave Falkon” was awarded two Golden Mask awards, Russia’s most prestigious theater prize, for best playwright’s work and best costume design in 2022.
The play has been performed by Berkovich’s Moscow-based independent theater company Docheri Soso.
The Islamic State is on Russia’s registry of banned terrorist and extremist organizations.
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