The case is one of hundreds that Russian officials have brought against anti-Kremlin activists under censorship laws enacted after Moscow launched a full-scale war against Ukraine last February.
The judge initially decided to award 150,000 to the representative of the rights group “Memorial“, which won the Nobel Prize last year, Oleg Orlov. ruble (1,410 euros) fine for “discrediting the Russian army”.
Memorial said on Friday that prosecutors, who originally asked for a fine against Orlov, have appealed the sentence and are now asking for a three-year prison sentence.
Prosecutors said Orlov harbors “political and ideological hatred of the Russian Federation” and, together with Memorial, continues to “harm the stability of civil society.”
70-year-old O. Orlov said that he is being “persecuted for having a different opinion”.
Mr. Orlov was charged in connection with a 2022 article entitled “They wanted fascism, they got it.”
In the article, O. Orlov claimed that Russian soldiers contributed to the mass killing of Ukrainians and added that totalitarianism had returned to his country.
Rights groups said Orlov’s case was punishment for opposing Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
“Oleg Orlov ended up on trial only because of an anti-war text he wrote, in which he condemned V. Putin’s Russia as a totalitarian fascist society. It is predictable that the system he described cannot tolerate his need to defend the truth and his refusal to remain silent,” said Natalia Zviagina, Director of Amnesty Russia.
At a court hearing this month, Orlov condemned what he said was an illegal and unjust verdict and repeated his criticism of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
O. Orlov, who is a biologist by training, joined the rights group “Memorial” at the beginning of its activity, in the late 1980s.
Memorial has established itself as an important pillar of civil society in Russia, preserving the memory of victims of communist repression and campaigning against rights abuses in Putin’s Russia.
In December 2021, a few months before Putin sent troops to Ukraine, Russian officials disbanded Memorial, accusing it of violations of legislation.
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