A resident of Khabarovsk was sentenced to five years in prison for posting about Kadyrov

The 1st Eastern District Military Court found Zakhar Zaripov, a resident of the Khabarovsk Territory, guilty in the case of justifying terrorism and sentenced him to five years in a general regime colony for his post in the “Zhyvo Zhurnal” about Ramzan Kadyrov. In it, the accused proposed to the head of Chechnya that they would not send military personnel from the republic to the war in Ukraine, and instead seek independence for Chechnya.

Zaripov was detained on January 25, 2023 at his workplace – in a correctional colony, where he taught mathematics to convicts. Two days later, he was sent under arrest to the Khabarovsk pre-trial detention center. According to the linguistic expertise taken into account by the court, the publication of “Podskazka Kadyrov” in “Zhyvo Zhurnal” contained signs of “an incitement to an armed seizure of power with the aim of violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation,” reports “OVD-Info” with reference to Zaripov’s wife.

• Zakhar Zaripov repeatedly participated in protest actions in Khabarovsk Krai. In 2020, he held rallies in Soviet Havana against the construction of a coal terminal and the arrest of Governor Sergei Furgal. His pregnant wife and young daughter remained at large.
• In July 2023, the project “Support of Political Prisoners. Memorial” recognized Zaripov as a political prisoner. “Even if one interprets the post, which formed the basis of the accusation, as a real call for the latter to commit any actions, the possibility of this cannot be considered at least realistically. With the maximum probability, one or another of the actions of the authoritarian leader of Chechnya will be planned and undertaken without taking into account the opinions of a teacher from the Khabarovsk region,” human rights activists noted.