Journalist DOXA was sentenced in absentia to 7 years for mailing
A court in Moscow sentenced DOXA journalist Maria Menshikova in absentia to seven years in prison on the charge of justifying terrorism. The reason was two posts from the publication’s mailing list posted on the Vkontakte social network. In them, Menshikova urged to write letters in prison to prisoners serving sentences for arson of military enlistment centers and damage to relay cabinets on the railway. From 2022, Russian courts will equate such actions with acts of terrorism.
Menshikova received 3.5 years of imprisonment for each post. The sentence was passed in absentia, since she left Russia. The journalist will be sent to a colony if she returns to Russia or will be extradited.
The publication “Network Freedoms” clarifies that Menshikov published both posts in the summer of 2022. She urged readers to write letters to the Russians Denys Serdyukov, Ilya Farber and Dmitry Lyamin, convicted of setting fire to military enlistment offices, and to the Belarusians Denys Dykun, Dmitry Ravych and Oleg Molchanov, convicted in Gomel for setting fire to a relay cabinet at a railway station.
The experts involved in the investigation found in the texts “a set of linguistic and psychological signs of the justification of the activity expressed <...> in expressing disagreement with the public, legal evaluation of their activities, by presenting them as persons who need to provide assistance, support, and encouragement to the addressee to this (write letters in place of their conclusions)”.
- Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, military enlistment offices, police departments, city administration buildings, and “United Russia” receptions have been set on fire all over Russia. After the announcement of mobilization, the number of such attacks increased. Cases of sabotage on the railways, along which trains carrying Russian military and equipment for the war in Ukraine, were sent, also became more frequent. Since the spring of 2022, Russian courts, which previously regarded such actions as intentional damage to property, began to qualify them under articles on terrorism, which attract much more serious punishments.
- The Doxa publication covers a wide range of public and political issues and events in Russia and the world. The magazine writes about political protests, human rights protection, speaks out against the war in Ukraine and repression in Russia. After the start of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, the Doxa website was blocked by Roskomnadzor, and in January 2024, the Prosecutor General’s Office declared Doxa an undesirable organization.
