Imprisonment instead of a fine
Moscow court tightens punishment for war critics
February 13, 2024, 2:57 p.m
Boris Kagarlizky will be taken into custody in July 2023 because he allegedly called for terrorism on the internet. First, the political scientist is sentenced to a fine. A court in Moscow has now converted this into a prison sentence of several years.
A Russian court has increased the punishment for political scientist Boris Kagarlizky for criticizing the Russian military offensive in Ukraine. Kagarlizky will now have to go to a penal colony for five years, Russian news agencies quoted a judge at the Moscow region appeals court as saying. In December, the prominent sociologist and Marxist was sentenced to a fine of the equivalent of 6,160 euros for denigrating the military offensive.
The military appeals court decided to “overturn the court’s decision at first instance and sentence Kagarlitsky to five years in a penal colony,” said the politics professor’s lawyer, Sergei Yerokhov, according to the official Tass news agency. The author of numerous publications and studies on the political left in Russia and other countries was arrested in the courtroom, Russian news agencies further reported.
The professor at the University of Social and Economic Sciences in Moscow was accused of “public calls for terrorist activities on the Internet” in July 2023 and taken into custody. The 65-year-old rejected the allegations made against him. In May 2022 – shortly after the Russian attack on Ukraine began – Kagarlizky was declared a “foreign agent”.