Moscow: Poet Fears Jail Over Manezh Riot Rhyme

Moscow: Poet Fears Jail Over Manezh Riot Rhyme

Via Moscow Times:
A Moscow poet said he faced ethnic hatred charges after being summoned to police headquarters Tuesday "for a chat" about a poem describing December rioting near the Kremlin.

Vsevolod Yemelin, a well-known modern poet in the Russian blogosphere, could be fined 500,000 rubles ($17,400) and jailed for five years if charged and convicted of inciting ethnic hatred with "Poetic Feuilleton," a poem published on his LiveJournal blog that critics say supports ultranationalists.

The poem's closing lines read: "Meanwhile the Caucasus natives knife Russians at all crossroads/And shoot them dead with a gun/The more they shoot, the louder they shout, "Glory to Putin!"

Yemelin said police were looking into a complaint from a resident from the Kabardino-Balkaria republic.

(source)