10 days in jail for writing “No to war” in the snow: how repression in Russia has intensified since the war

This Wednesday, a Moscow court sentenced a man to ten days in prison for having written “No to war” in the snow. This is the latest punishment after a series of repressive laws passed by Russia since the beginning of their invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The condemned man is called Dmitry Fedorovwho was arrested by the police when he wrote that slogan with his finger in the snow of the popular park Gorkyspecified the AFP agency.

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Fedorov He denied in court that he had resisted arrest, but admitted having written the slogan and was sentenced to ten days of administrative detention, indicates the court document reviewed by AFP.

Harsh laws and thousands of arrests

Russia It has passed laws to repress criticism of the war, and as these emerged, it has tightened them. Many opposition figures have ended up in jail or exile. The same thing has happened to thousands of civilians.

According to the Russian NGO OVD-Info, some 20,000 people were arrested in just under two years for having opposed the war in Ukraine. Just During this week, Russian courts must hand down sentences in 129 trials with political connotationsindicated AFP.

At the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine massive protests broke out in Russiaspecially in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated peacefully in the streets and others did so through social networks. The Russian authorities responded with repression and More than 16,000 people were arrestedindicated an Amnesty International report from September 2022.

The few independent media Those who remained in the country were also under pressure. Many of them closed or left the country. Others opted for self-censorship or reporting only based on the official Russian source.

Furthermore, the NGOs defending human rights have been described by Vladimir Putin’s Government as “foreign agents” or “undesirables”and have faced arbitrary closure or blocking of their websites and other forms of harassment, Amnesty International maintains.

After the invasion of Ukraine, the State Duma passed a law to criminalize opinions critical of the Russian authorities, their actions and their policies. They were typified crimes such as spreading “false information” about the activities of the Armed Forces Russian troops and “discredit” Russian troops.

From now on, anyone accused of committing these “crimes” faces paying exorbitant fines of between three and five million rubles ($55,000 to $92,000) or serving sentences of up to 15 years in prison.

In March of this year, Russian deputies approved another law that imposes sentences of up to 15 years in prison for those who criticize armed groups like Wagnerwho at that time had a very active role in the war in Ukraine.

After the approval of the repressive laws, in Russia is prohibited from using the terms “war” or “invasion” in relation to what happens in Ukraine; or accuse the army of war crimes.

Condemned opponents

A well-known figure of the Russian opposition, the journalist and activist Vladimir Kara-Murzawas sentenced in April of this year to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of the charges of treason, dissemination of “false” information about the army and for its affiliation with an “undesirable organization.”

This is the longest sentence against someone who criticized the war.

How do you note it? BBC Worldin case of Kara-Murza was based in part on a speech he gave to politicians in the United States in 2022, in which He said Russia was committing war crimes in Ukraine with cluster bombs in residential areas, as well as “bombing of schools and maternity hospitals.”

In December 2022, the well-known Russian opponent Ilya Yashin was sentenced by a Moscow court to eight and a half years in prison for spreading “information false” about the Russian army.

Yashinarrested in June 2022, was tried for denouncing in a live broadcast on Youtube “the massacre of civilians” in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.

Journalists and citizens

In August of this year, two Russian journalists were sentenced in absentia to 11 years in prison for spreading “information false” about the army.

More than a year before, in March 2022, journalists Ruslan Leviev and Michael Nacke They published a video on YouTube about the war in Ukraine which contained “information false” about the army and Russian authorities, according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office published on Telegram.

Both live abroad and an arrest warrant has been issued against them since May 2022.

Another case is that of the Russian musician and environmentalist Alexander Bakhtin51 years old, who is also the subject of a judicial process.

In March and April 2022 Bakhtin published three messages on the Russian social network VKontakte to denounce the military campaign in Ukraineciting civilian casualties and implicating the president Vladimir Putinindicated the AFP agency.

In March 2023, he was arrested and placed in preventive detention, after being accused of spreading “information false” about the Russian army. He faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

while Anatoly Roshchin, 75, has also been prosecuted. This retired aeronautical engineer is accused of discrediting the military over Internet posts. He could receive up to five years in prison.

In March of this year, A Moscow court sentenced Russian student Dmitri Ivanov (23) to eight and a half years in prison for publishing on Telegram information considered “false” about the army.

Ivanov, a student at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at Moscow’s Lomonosov University, was found guilty of having spread “false information about the Russian army for reasons of political hatred,” the official TASS agency reported.

Immigrants will not be able to criticize the Government

On Wednesday, the Russian Parliament reported that it is preparing a bill that will force immigrants to sign a contract in which they agree to refrain from criticizing the country’s authorities.

“The bill called ‘loyalty agreement’ for immigrants entering Russia “It is very advanced,” explained Leonid Kalashnikov, head of relations with the post-Soviet space of the Duma or chamber of deputies, to the Interfax agency.

He added that said contract contemplates “the agreement by a foreign citizen entering Russia to respect a series of rules, in particular, not to dedicate himself to discrediting the domestic and foreign policy of our country.”

“And not to distort the historical facts relating to the Great Patriotic War,” he added.