Academic cybrarian, bibliophile & culturista. Mentor to library school (LIS) students and graduates. Advocate for all libraries and their users. [Fmr. Organizer, NY Librarians Meetup]
Natalia Sharina at a hearing in Moscow in May.Credit
Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images There is something particularly Orwellian about accusing a librarian of
hate crimes because books under her care don’t jibe with government
propaganda. That, in essence, is what a Russian court did
in giving to Natalia Sharina a four-year suspended sentence because the
Moscow Library of Ukrainian Literature, which she formerly headed,
purportedly carried literature that didn’t match Russia’s official
version of what’s happening in Ukraine.No matter that most of the books seized in the raid on the library in
2015 and cited by the prosecution were in special storage and not
available to the public, or that, according to the library staff, the
book deemed most offensive by the state was planted there by the police.
The case was not about inciting “interethnic enmity and hatred,” nor
was it about the spurious charges of embezzlement that were leveled
against Mrs. Sharina. Read more...
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