Human rights alert: Opera director is arrested in Moscow

The controversial director Kirill Serebrennikov has been arrested in Moscow for questioning over an alleged one million US dollar fraud. He is expected to be charged.

Opera houses in Stuttgart and Berlin, where Serebrennikov has forthcoming productions, have raised the alarm.

Suspicions have been raised that the charges are politically motivated.

UPDATE from Meduza: After three months of raids and interrogations, a prominent Russian stage director is in police custody. In the early morning hours on August 22, federal investigators detained stage director Kirill Serebrennikov in an ongoing fraud case. According to officials, the celebrated director organized the theft of “no less than 68 million rubles [$1.2 million]” allocated to the “Platforma” theater program. Police detained Serebrennikov in St. Petersburg on the set of his new film about Soviet rock legend Viktor Tsoi. The director was then taken to Moscow. In May, police raided Serebrennikov’s home and theater, the Gogol Center. Timeline of events in this case, in English