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Russia's Crackdown on Free Expression in 5 Cases
Ivan Safronov in court.
Putin has been rapidly snuffing out personal freedoms since the Constitutional referendum.
Ivan Safronov in court.
7/22/20
Russia under President Vladimir Putin has grown increasingly intolerant of voices that challenge the conservative values championed by the Kremlin. In one prominent trial, a verdict is expected Wednesday for leading Gulag historian Yury Dmitriyev accused of abusing his adopted daughter. Allies say the authorities opened the probe to silence his work on Soviet-era mass killings. Ahead of the ruling, here are five of the most high-profile cases being brought against prominent cultural figures, activists and journalists who have challenged the authorities.
Gulag historian - Yury Dmitriyev, a historian in northwestern Russia who spent decades exhuming mass graves of people killed under Soviet leader Josef Stalin, was arrested on child pornography charges in 2016. A court acquitted him — a rarity in Russia — in 2018 but a higher court reversed the ruling and he was slapped with a charge of sexually assaulting a minor. Yesterday a Russian court sentenced Mr. Dmitriyev to 3½ years in prison.
Leading ex-journalist - The Federal Security Services (FSB) this month arrested on treason charges Ivan Safronov, a former journalist who had recently joined Russia's space agency as an adviser. The case, which will be held behind closed doors, could see Safronov jailed for two decades.
Progressive director - A Moscow court last month handed a suspended sentence to acclaimed film and theater director Kirill Serebrennikov accused of embezzling government funds in a case that sparked outrage at home and abroad. Serebrennikov and several co-defendants were found guilty of defrauding the Culture Ministry out of 129 million rubles (about $2 million) designated for a project called Platforma.
LGBT activist - A young LGBT activist in the Far East, Yulia Tsvetkova, is facing six years in prison on charges of distributing pornography to minors after posting colorful drawings of vaginas online. She has said authorities are using the propaganda and pornography charges to punish members of the LGBT community in Russia unfairly. Her case has sparked an international campaign by artists and poets in her support.
'Justifying terrorism' - Journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva this month was found guilty of "justifying terrorism" over a column she wrote about a 2018 bombing at the FSB headquarters in the northern Arkhangelsk region that left three officers injured. In the article, she criticized the FSB's growing influence as well as the increasingly oppressive political climate under Putin.
Putin has been rapidly snuffing out personal freedoms since the Constitutional referendum.