International Arrest Warrant
Russia initiates proceedings against “fake news”.
3/17/2022 1:33 am
With a new law, Kremlin boss Putin has made unpopular statements about the Ukraine war in Russia a punishable offence. The first fines have already been distributed, now comes the next step. The judiciary initiates three criminal proceedings, one against a Russian woman living abroad. You face up to 15 years in prison.
The Russian judiciary has launched the first three criminal cases for spreading “false information” about the Russian army. Investigators are targeting two unnamed suspects from Tomsk and Seversk in Siberia, as well as Russian expatriate Veronika Belotserkovskaya, according to the Russian Investigative Committee’s website.
An international arrest warrant is to be issued against Belotserkovskaya, who has 900,000 followers on Instagram. According to the investigative committee, the suspects are said to have spread “false information” on the Internet about the actions of Russian troops in Ukraine at the beginning of March.
The investigations are possible under a new law that was passed in early March amid the Ukraine conflict. It provides for prison sentences of up to 15 years and worries members of the opposition and the media critical of the Kremlin in particular, who fear that they will be prosecuted for statements about the Russian military operation in Ukraine.
The first fines were imposed on the basis of the new law at the beginning of March. According to the authorities, a 26-year-old was sentenced by a court to 30,000 rubles (equivalent to 243 euros) for disparaging the Russian army in the Ivanovo region on the Volga north-east of Moscow. The man was picked up with a poster in the city of Pljos.
The journalist Marina Ovsyannikova also received a fine of 30,000 rubles after her anti-war protest on Russian state television. But she could face another penalty. Investigations have been launched into the alleged spread of lies about Russia’s armed forces, the state agency TASS reported, citing a source with the investigative authorities.