A Russian man faces three years in prison for sharing the sexually explicit music video for Rammstein’s “P*ssy” on social media in 2014.
Over six years later, in September 2020, the Russian government charged Andrei Borovikov with “production and distribution of pornography” for posting the video on a Russian social media site Vkontakte, according to Amnesty International UK.
Borovikov calls the charges “utterly absurd,” claiming that he’s been targeted for being a former coordinator for Aleksei Navalny, the jailed political rival of Vladimir Putin. A former volunteer at Borovikov’s office reported the video to authorities, who ordered a “sexological and cultural examination” of the admittedly pornographic video.
Related Video
For those unfamiliar with Rammstein and the video in question, the depicted porn shoots and orgy scenes are not exactly subtle. It’s also the second time someone’s faced criminal charges for sharing the same Rammstein video. In 2019, a man from Belarus was persecuted for proliferating pornography online after posting the video.
Amnesty International Moscow office director Natalia Zviagina called the most recent charges against Borovikov a “mockery of justice,” calling for them to be dropped. A Russian court delivers its verdict tomorrow (April 29th).
“The Russian authorities should be focusing on turning around the spiraling human rights crisis they have created,” she told Radio Free Europe, “not devising ludicrous new ways of prosecuting and silencing their critics.”
As one of the most openly erotic bands in metal, Rammstein certainly have no love for Russia’s anti-LGBT laws and sexual repression. Most famously, the band’s male guitarists Richard Kruspe and Paul Landers kissed onstage in Moscow in 2019 in defiance of those laws. Meanwhile, frontman Till Lindemann continues to blur the line between music video and outright porn, taking NSFW to a new level.
