RUSSIA: A lawyer in pretrial detention for a post about the shelling of a hypermarket in Kharkiv
OVD-Info (09.11.2024) – The Central District Court of Volgograd arrested lawyer Ruslan Nurushev for a publication in “VKontakte” about the strike with air bombs on the construction hypermarket “Epicenter” in Kharkiv. This was reported to OVD-Info by lawyer Eduard Yapparov.
Nurushev was sent to the pre-trial detention center until January 1, 2025. The defense petitioned for house arrest.
The man is accused of an article about “fakes” about the Russian army motivated by political hatred or enmity (paragraph “e” of Part 2 of Art. 207.3 of the Criminal Code). Nurushev does not deny the authorship of the post, but does not see it as a crime and does not admit guilt.
On March 24, on the air of the Volgograd-1 TV channel, producer Sergei Mazanov and ex-deputy Roman Potolovsky published the names of 15 Volgograd residents who laid flowers at the action in memory of Alexei Navalny from February 16 to March 1. Activists filed a complaint with the police, but the Investigative Committee said that they found no signs of a crime in the disclosure of personal data.
Nurushev participated in filing a complaint. On June 12, he and other activists were searched. On the same day, the court fined the lawyer 50 thousand rubles under the article on disrespect for the authorities (Part 3 of Art. 20.1 Administrative Code) because of the “Putin rhyme” and other publications in VKontakte. In October, the man complained that the equipment seized during the search had never been returned to him.
- Since February 24, 2022 – the first day of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine – residents of Russian cities go to anti-war actions every day and talk about the tragedy online. Anti-war speeches and statements become a reason for criminal prosecution. At the moment, more than 1,050 people have become defendants in criminal cases initiated because of the protest against the war with Ukraine. Read more about this in our infographics.
- Article 207.3 (Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the armed forces of the Russian Federation) was included in the Criminal Code in March 2022 – thus the authorities reacted to anti-war speeches and statements, as well as the dissemination of information about the war that does not come from official Russian sources. The maximum penalty under the article is 15 years of imprisonment.
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