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Activist Oleg Orlov is imprisoned for his criticism of the war in Ukraine. The opposition in Russia is shrinking. The pattern is clear.
Moscow – Oleg Orlov appeared in the courtroom with handcuffs. For his criticism of Russia's war in the Ukraine The renowned human rights activist then felt the full severity of the state: Orlov was arrested because of his criticism of the actions in the Ukraine war sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
The former co-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization Memorial, which is now in… Russia is banned, is internationally regarded as a politically persecuted person and is one of the few opposition members who remained in Russia even after the start of the war. Several Western diplomats also took part in the verdict announcement in the court of Moscow's Golovinsky district.
The human rights activist had actually already received a relatively reasonable fine of 150,000 rubles (around 1,505 euros) in October 2023 for “discrediting” the Russian army, but in December a judge overturned the verdict and the trial began again. Even back then, the activist's supporters feared a prison sentence.
Critical article on the Ukraine war forms the basis for proceedings in Russia – Orlov remains optimistic
The case against Orlov ran for several months, initiated by one Article from November 2022 with the title “They wanted fascism, they got it”. The text points, among other things, to the suffering of the Ukrainian population. The Ukraine war also dealt “a serious blow to Russia’s future,” the article said. Among other things, the activist was also called for a one-man protest in Moscow imprisoned. He demonstrated with a poster saying loudly Moscow Times the following words were written: “Our unwillingness to know the truth and our silence make us accomplices to this crime.”
Orlov told him Moscow Times before his sentence was announced, the prison sentence was “a demand from above”. He compared this a while ago Behavior towards regime critics today is similar to that of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the human rights activist remained optimistic about change in Russia: “I believe in a better future. There is a true future ahead of us, and behind it there is nothing but the past.”
In this second sentencing, prosecutors allege “a motive of hostility and hatred toward military personnel.” Orlov said loudly at a hearing this month Moscow Times: “I plead not guilty and the accusation is not clear to me.” Orlov at one point described the trial as “an opportunity to bring my ideas and beliefs to the public.”
UN calls on Russia to withdraw Orlov verdict: “Classic example of a repressive system”
The U.N.-Special reporter on the human rights situation in Russia, Mariana Katzarowa, called on Russian authorities to immediately withdraw the verdict. “The Orlov trial is not just an attack on the individual, but an orchestrated attempt to silence the voices of human rights defenders in Russia and any criticism of the war against Ukraine,” explained Katzarowa. “It is a prime example of a repressive system in which law enforcement authorities and the judiciary are exploited for political purposes.”
About 200 people gathered at the news agency AFP according to the courtroom to say goodbye to Orlov. The human rights activist had spent much of his life documenting rights violations within the Memorial group until it was disbanded by Russian authorities in 2021. A year later, in 2022, The organization, founded in 1989, received the Nobel Peace Prize.
The conviction comes in the context of the general persecution of Russian opposition figures that is about to begin Russia election seems to take on new dimensions. The Kremlin critic died a little over a week ago Alexei Navalny in an isolated penal colony in the Arctic. The opposition politician Meanwhile, Boris Nadezhdin is campaigning for a presidential candidacy against the judiciary, after some of the required signatures were declared invalid. Now Orlov's fate has also hardened.(dpa/lismah)
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