By Stewart Tongue

YNOT EUROPE – A Ukrainian adult performer who fled her native country after the government enacted a ban on pornography has been denied asylum in the European Union.

Anastasia Gryshaithe, popularly known as Wiska, emigrated to the Czech Republic in 2010 when Ukrainian prosecutors opened an investigation and brought criminal charges against her for producing and distributing adult content. For the past two years, she has tried to convince the Czechs her request for asylum should be granted on free-speech and personal-liberty grounds.

Now that her appeal has been denied, she faces deportation.

“I have been given 15 days to leave the country,” she said, announcing that she will appeal the Czech Republic’s decision to the EU courts. “They don’t care that we can’t go back to Ukraine.”

In 2009 President Victor Yushchenko signed a law banning pornography in Ukraine. People found guilty of possessing, selling or disseminating pornography face up to three years in prison. The law has been criticized for failing to define “pornography,” which detractors say opens the door to misuse and selective enforcement by authorities.

In fact, Wiska said, the complaint that lead to a raid on her home and her eventual flight from prosecution was filed by a local member of the Ukrainian parliament who disapproved of Wiska’s appearances on television talk shows.

Police found what they claim to be pornographic material on the compute in Wiska’s family home during the raid, but the performer maintains the material was for private use. She has said she never filmed any pornography in Ukraine.

“They don’t see the difference between storage and production,” she said.

The Ukrainian feminist activist group Femen staged a Wiska-support demonstration before the Ukrainian Parliament in 2010, but no similar events materialized during her campaign for asylum.