5.  The applicant was born in 1970 and lives in Chișinău.
6.  The applicant has been involved in numerous protests against alleged acts of corruption and abuse committed by police officers, prosecutors and judges. He was himself the victim of police abuse, ill-treatment and prosecutorial inaction (see Mătăsaru and Saviţchi v. Moldova, no. 38281/08, 2 November 2010). Each year during the professional holiday of the prosecutors or the police he stages protests involving live animals, toilets, caricatures and masks.
7.  On 29 January 2013, the professional holiday of prosecutors in Moldova, the applicant conducted a one person demonstration in front of the Prosecutor General’s Office. According to him, the aim of the protest was to draw public attention to the corruption and the control exercised by politicians over the Prosecutor General’s Office. At 10 a.m. he started his protest by installing two large wooden sculptures on the stairs of the Prosecutor General’s Office. The first sculpture represented an erect penis with a picture of the face of a high-ranking politician attached to its head. The sculpture had a white collar and a tie and measured two metres. The second sculpture represented a large vulva with pictures of several high‑ranking prosecutors between the labia. The applicant also inflated balloons in the form of male genitals and attached them to the nearby trees.
8.  The demonstration was observed from the beginning by several police officers and numerous journalists approached to interview the applicant. At 11 a.m. a police van approached, the sculptures were removed by police officers and the applicant was taken to a police station.
9.  Later the applicant was charged with the criminal offence of hooliganism. The criminal investigation was conducted by a department of the Prosecutor General’s Office whose head’s picture had been attached to the sculpture of the vulva.
10.  On 2 March 2015 the Râșcani District Court found the applicant guilty as charged and sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment. The sentence was suspended for a period of three years. In deciding on the sanction to be applied, the court took into consideration the fact that the applicant had previously been sanctioned with fines for similar deeds and that those sanctions had proved to be inefficient. The court considered that the applicant’s deeds had been immoral because he had exposed obscene sculptures in a public place where they could be seen by anyone, including by children. The court based its findings on the statements of several prosecution witnesses who had stated that they had disliked the sculptures exposed by the applicant and had considered them to be indecent and obscene. The court also stated that assimilating public officials with genitals went beyond the acceptable limits of criticism in a democratic society and was therefore not an act protected under Article 10 of the Convention. Moreover, the accusations meant to be made by the applicant by means of his protest against the officials concerned lacked a factual basis and had been contrary to the principle of presumption of innocence.
11.  The applicant appealed against the above decision arguing, inter alia, that it ran contrary to his rights guaranteed by Articles 10 and 11 of the Convention.
12.  On 2 November 2015 the Chișinău Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant’s appeal.
13.  The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law with the Supreme Court of Justice in which he reiterated his position that his conviction had been contrary to the provisions of the Convention and stated that the sculptures had represented a form of artistic expression which was to be protected under Article 10 of the Convention. He reiterated that his protest had been against the corruption within the Prosecutor General’s Office and among high-ranking politicians, a phenomenon which was universally known and did not need to be proved. He also argued that the sculptures exposed by him could not be considered obscene. In any event, at the time of his protest, children were normally at schools and kindergartens. The fact that some of the prosecution witnesses disliked what they saw was not sufficient to hold him responsible for a criminal offence. The applicant admitted that the form of the protest chosen by him had been striking, however he considered this manner of protesting as the only way possible to make himself heard in a society which was oversaturated with subjects of discussion. The applicant finally submitted that the sanction applied to him had been disproportionately harsh and that it had had a chilling effect on him. He pointed to the fact that the first-instance court had admitted to having pursued the goal of discouraging his future involvement in protests. By the application of a suspended sentence, he had in fact been forced to abstain from organising further protests for a period of three years or risk being imprisoned.
14.  On 20 April 2016 the Supreme Court of Justice dismissed the applicant’s appeal on points of law and upheld the judgments of the lower courts. The decision was notified to the applicant on 19 May 2016.