A court in the region of Moscow sentenced an activist to six years in prison on Friday for criticizing the Russian attack on social media Ukrainedenounced an NGO and one of his relatives.
Alexander Bakhtina 51-year-old musician and environmental activist, was arrested in March 2023 and charged with spreading “false information” about the Russian military, a charge often used to suppress voices critical of the conflict.
«Alexander He has been sentenced to six years in a penal colony,” he told afp Andrey Shchetininfriend of bakhtin present during the hearing.
You will also need to undergo regular psychiatric evaluations, he added. Shchetinin. human rights advocacy group OVD-Info confirmed the sentence.
The accusation was based on three social media posts made between March and April 2022, in which he blamed the Russian president. Vladimir Putin for the conflict.
bakhtin cursed the judge loudly after the sentence was read to her, said Shchetinin.
The defendant’s mother Lyudmila Bakhtina79, had been called as a witness for the prosecution against her own son.
In a previous hearing attended by journalists from the afp, the woman told the court that she had signed her testimony without reading it and that she did not know that she could refuse to testify. According to bakhtinathe activist suffers from bronchitis and heart problems.
Some 20,000 people have been detained in Russia for protesting against the conflict in Ukraineaccording to OVD-Info.
