An anti-war activist in Bashkiria was sentenced to five years in a colony

A court in Ufa sentenced anti-war activist Ramila Saitova (Galym) to five years in prison. She was found guilty of “public appeals to carry out activities directed against the security of the state.” The court also banned Saitova for four years from engaging in activities related to website administration – that is, actually writing anything on the Internet in her name.

As Idel.Realii clarifies, the reason for the activist’s detention and subsequent arrest in May was her video appeal to those mobilized in Bashkortostan for the war with Ukraine. In the video, Saitova called on those mobilized who “disagree with killing people” to go home. The FSB investigation believes that the activist thereby “encouraged servicemen to desert with weapons entrusted to them on duty.”

The trial in the case of Saitova started in the Kirovsky District Court of Ufa at the end of August 2023.

Saitova considers herself innocent. She clarified that earlier she only recognized the fact of posting a video on her YouTube channel with an appeal to those mobilized from Bashkortostan.

Explaining her position, Saitova stated that she was addressing the mobilized, who, in her opinion, “are not recognized as military personnel” and therefore “are not subject to a military court, remaining civilians.” “I have not for a second regretted my video appeal. If I had not come forward with it, I would have lost myself as a person. There are cases when to remain silent means to be complicit,” Saitova said.

• The court considered Saitova’s alleged offense a relapse. In 2021, she has already received three years of imprisonment and a ban on administering websites for two years under the article on calls for extremist activity. Then she called for the de-Christianization of Bashkortostan, the expulsion of migrants from Armenia from the republic, and demanded the return of important historical objects to Bashkir clans.