A court docket in Russia on Thursday ordered a former state tv journalist to be positioned below home arrest for practically two months pending an investigation and attainable trial over allegations of spreading false details about the Russian armed forces.
Marina Ovsyannikova was charged with a road protest final month when she held up a banner that learn: “(Russian President Vladimir) Putin is a assassin, his troopers are fascists. 352 kids have been killed (in Ukraine). What number of extra kids must die so that you can cease?”
If convicted, Ovsyannikova faces as much as 10 years in jail below a brand new regulation criminalizing statements in opposition to the army. The regulation was enacted shortly after Russian troops invaded Ukraine.
Within the courtroom on Thursday, Ovsyannikova held a placard that learn, “Let the murdered kids come to you in your goals at evening.” She first made worldwide headlines on March 14 when she staged an on-air protest in opposition to Moscow’s warfare in Ukraine.
“Marina turned a hostage to her personal conscience and a hostage to her love for her kids, ,” her lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov mentioned after the listening to.
“She can’t be overseas as a result of her kids are right here, and she or he can’t be silent right here as a result of she is a prisoner of her conscience,” Zakhvatov mentioned. “As a mom, she can not stay silent. She sees what is going on on and it makes her communicate up.”
In March, Ovsyannikova appeared behind the anchor of a Channel One night newscast, holding a placard that learn, “Cease the warfare, do not consider the propaganda, they’re mendacity to you right here.” She stop her job on the station, was charged with disparaging the Russian army and fined 30,000 rubles ($270 on the time).
After quitting her job, Ovsyannikova turned one thing of an activist, establishing anti-war posts and publicly talking out in opposition to the battle.
She has been fined two extra occasions in current weeks for making the army a important Fb submit and feedback slandering her in entrance of a court docket, the place an opposition determine, who was additionally accused, gave false details about to have unfold the army was taken into custody.
As of Wednesday, there have been 79 legal circumstances for spreading false details about the army and as much as four,000 administrative circumstances for disparaging the armed forces, in response to Web Freedoms, a authorized support group that focuses on free speech circumstances.
