The lawyer was fined for “discrediting” by denunciation of clients

The court in Izhevsk fined a local lawyer 30,000 rubles for the article about the so-called discrediting of the army due to anti-war statements made during the consultation of women whose relatives in the colony were recruited for the war in Ukraine. The denunciation was written by these women themselves. “Advokatskaya ulitsa” reports about it, “Mediazona” drew attention to the publication.

Two local residents, Olga Dyaghileva and Elena Shcherbakova, applied for legal help, as their relatives, who served sentences in the Udmurt colonies, had not been in touch for a long time. The lawyer, whose name is withheld, told them that there is a high probability that the prisoners were recruited into PMC “Wagner” and sent to the war in Ukraine.

One of those who sought counseling recorded the conversation on a voice recorder. After the consultation, they, using the recording, turned to the police, claiming that the lawyer “repeatedly discredited the armed forces and the government of the Russian Federation” during the conversation, and also spoke out against the so-called special military operation. Although the conversation was private, no other persons were present, the court considered it public – in the complaints it was written that the door of the lawyer’s office “was not closed with a key” and therefore “anyone can enter there.”

Articles about the so-called fakes and discrediting of the army, by which people who speak out against the war in Ukraine are tried in Russia, presuppose the publicity of the said. Earlier it became known that the driver of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow, Sergei Vedel, was arrested in connection with an article about so-called fakes about the Russian army, as a result of the wiretapping of his phone. Vedel’s statements about the war in a telephone conversation caused a “feeling of anxiety, fear and insecurity on the part of the state” in the employee listening to Vedel’s phone. At the first interrogation, Vedel’s lawyer stated that a private conversation cannot be considered “public dissemination of information.” The investigator disagreed, saying that there was a witness to the conversation – the one who listened to Vedel’s phone.