Pyotr Verzilov

Pyotr Verzilov is a Russian performance artist, political activist, and founder of the news website MediaZona.

After the 2012 imprisonment of his ex-wife, Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, he became the group’s unofficial spokesman, giving interviews to the BBC, Der Spiegel, and others.

In 2014 he founded MediaZona, a website reporting on corruption in the Russian law enforcement system. He was poisoned, presumably in connection with this work, in 2018. Pussy Riot immediately blamed the Russian government for his condition, and an examination in Berlin’s Charite hospital concluded that it was ‘highly probable’ he was indeed poisoned by state actors.

He has since made a full recovery.

Speeches

Russia

The Silencing of Critical Voices in Russia with Pyotr Verzilov

Pyotr Verzilov, Russian performance artist, political activist, and founder of the news website MediaZona, adresses the 5th Annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy – see below for full prepared remarks.   Full remarks   Extract from a September 2012 interview with President Vladimir Putin Reporter: I would like to talk

Panel

From Moscow to the Middle East: The Silencing of Critical Voices with Pyotr Verzilov, Kacem El Ghazzali, Lukpan Akhmedyarov, Guy Mettan

A panel including one of Kazakhstan’s most prominent independent journalists and former editor-in-chief and reporter at Uralskaya Nedelya, Lukpan Akhmedyarov;  Moroccan human rights activist and intellectual, Kacem El Ghazzali; journalist and former Executive Director of the “Club Suisse de la Presse,” Guy Mettan; and Russian performance artist, political activist, and