MOSCOW – Tightening the bolts of freedom of expression further in Russia a few days after a national plebiscite effectively rooted Vladimir V. Putin as president for life, a Russian military court on Monday sentenced an independent journalist accused of “justifying terrorism “in a 2018 critical text from the security services.
The court in Pskov, an ancient city near Russia’s border with Estonia, sentenced journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva to a fine of approximately $ 7,000 and ordered the confiscation of her computer and cell phone.
Prosecutors had asked for a six-year prison sentence, making the punishment less severe than the journalist and her supporters feared, but the guilty verdict sent a chilling message.
Lev Shlosberg, leader of the Pskov region of Yabloko, a liberal opposition party and supporter of the journalist, described the verdict as “an achievement for civil society but not a victory.”
Authorities, he said in a phone interview, had walked away from a severe prison sentence under public pressure, “but still found an innocent person guilty because they can never admit that the security services are wrong.” If they do that, the whole system falls apart. ”
Even the Kremlin human rights council itself had denounced the charges as unjustified, adding their voice to a chorus of support for Ms. Prokopyeva in what became a battle of wills between a flawless local reporter and the powerful security apparatus. From Russia.
His conviction indicated that, despite a resounding vote of public support last week for constitutional amendments intended to allow Putin to rule until 2036, the Kremlin is in no mood to tolerate criticism of security agencies anchoring the system every more authoritarian of Russia.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Monday that he could not comment on the verdict because Russian courts act independently of the Kremlin, despite ample evidence that officials often issue court decisions in a system known as telephone justice. .
In her final statement in court on Friday, Ms. Prokopyeva dismissed the charges against her as “absurd”, pointing out that her work posed no danger to anyone and blamed the authorities for fueling the violence by cracking down on the dissent.
“It is the state power that has fallen into the hands of cruel and cynical people who represents the most serious threat to the security of citizens,” he said.
The case against Ms. Prokopyeva revolved around a brief comment she wrote in 2018 after a Russian teenager, a self-declared anarchist, blew himself up inside a branch of the secret police in Arkhangelsk, near the Arctic Circle.
She blamed the government for the attack, which killed only the 17-year-old attacker, arguing that nonviolent security media, such as street protests, had been constantly shut down by often violent security officials.
“Cruelty breeds cruelty,” the journalist said in her comment, which was broadcast on the Pskov subsidiary of Ekho Moskvy, a Moscow radio station, and was also published on the Internet.
The terrorism-related charges brought against Ms. Prokopyeva generated great contempt and dismay, including from Mr. Putin’s human rights council, which stated last year that it had “carefully studied” the text at the center of the case and ” he did not see it in any sign of justification for terrorism. “
Shortly after giving its opinion, the human rights council was purged of its most independent members and stacked with Kremlin loyalists.
