A 72-year-old pensioner was sentenced to five and a half years prison for allegedly sharing a post online about Russia's military casualties in Ukraine, rights groups said Monday.
Yevgeniya Maiboroda, from Russia's southern Rostov region, was prosecuted under a law that prohibits the deliberate spreading of "false information" about the Russian army.
Maiboroda pleaded guilty but denied she was motivated by "political hatred", as prosecutors alleged, the OVD-Info rights group reported.
She shared two posts on her VK social media page, one an "emotional video" about the conflict and the other on the number of soldiers killed, legal group Setevye Svobody said.
The group said she felt compelled to share the posts after her brother became trapped under the rubble of a building "collapsed by shells" in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
A spokesperson for Shakhty City Court in Rostov confirmed Maiboroda's conviction to AFP, and said she was charged over illegal content on her VK account, without elaborating.
Moscow made criticism of its army illegal shortly after launching its Ukraine offensive in February 2022. Thousands of opponents of the conflict have been censored, jailed or exiled.
A 61-year-old ailing pensioner who criticised the conflict was sentenced this month to over eight years in prison for enemy treason, a charge he denied.
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Comments (2)
A new low for a corrupt president
Sadly there remains one USA presidential candidate that has stately indicated he would like similar unstopable dictatorial powers. This mythical "pied piper" (based on a similar tragedy that transpired in Germany's town of Hamelin on 26 June 1284) is leading his transfixed cult followers right down this same path.
He's already shown his insurrectionist distain for the foundation of democracy : fair elections. He's indicated his initial days in power if re-elected would be spent seeking revenge on those who oppose him. With lies (+30,500 documented) and venomous tirades he's already inspired the weaker minded of followers to plot murdering those who stand up to him.
MRGA / MAGA leadership now threatens the core of the USA's now +250 year old democracy. How sad for its naive MAGA cult followers if they actually could wake up from their trance to see they had been the instruments of their nations once hard won democratic freedoms. All due a con man who openly expresses putin is a "Genius" and who like putin has no intent of ever relinquishing power. Sadly the majority of these cult members cannot wake up...they can only drink more poisoned 'Kool-aid' and narrow their selfish focus further by lowering the brim of their red hats.
Their leadership aspires to the same cronyism , kleptocratic model which oppresses mainstream russian people ... such as this article sadly illustrates.
@John, oops....typo above ..meant to type "instruments of their nations once hard won democratic freedoms' demise"