Art-activist brand Kultrab has dropped a series of merch in support of Russian human rights group Apologia Protesta. Illustrated by artist Bela Papera, the collection features a thermos, a slogan t-shirt, and passport covers laying out Russia’s laws on the right to protest and freedom of assembly.
All proceeds from the collection will go to the NGO, which has been providing legal help to those arrested while protesting against the Russian government since 2017.
“The Russian political elite is trying to ban everything. But the right to peaceful protest is a fundamental right,” explains Egor Eremeev, co-founder of Kultrab.
The collection was released on Marketplace, a new Kultrab platform designed to help non-profit groups raise funds by selling merchandise online.
A new wave of anti-government demonstrations swept Russia at the start of 2021, when thousands of people took to the streets to protest wide scale corruption, police brutality, and the the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Kultrab co-founder Egor Eremeev was one of those detained by police at a protest in Moscow in February, and later spent 14 days in prison. Using a mobile phone sneaked into his cell, he documented his time in detention, which he later shared with The Calvert Journal.