By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Moscow : A court in Kazakhstan has jailed a 22-year-old man for giving the finger to a lawmaker’s motorcade, in a ruling that put rude gestures outside the scope of freedom of expression.
The legislator, Senate Chairman Kairat Mami, did not notice that he was being flipped off, his spokesman told Tengrinews.kz.
But the man who gave the finger to the VIP-cavalcade made a bad judgement call to do so in view of traffic police.
The 22-year-old offender, whose name was withheld, was promptly apprehended and put on trial.
Despite pleading guilty and offering “the most sincere regrets”, he was jailed for five days over the “audacity” of his crime qualified as petty hooliganism, Newskaz.ru said.
The incident took place in the northeastern city of Pavlodar last week, but was not reported until the verdict was passed.
In Russia’s St. Petersburg city in October last year, scores of residents used the gesture to greet the passing cortege of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
No one was punished for flipping off Medvedev, though city head Georgy Poltavchenko derided city residents for “loutishness”.