Before that, he worked in the state-owned Russian Channel 1. He was considered one of President Vladimir Putin’s confidants. He then got his own channel on YouTube, where he criticized Russia’s war in Ukraine, among other things. Now the Russian journalist Aleksandr Nevzorov has been sentenced for spreading so-called fake news. The investigation started with a comment on social media. Nevzorov wrote that Russian forces deliberately bombed a hospital for mothers and newborns in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to the Reuters news agency. Alexander Nevzorov during the “Open Library” debate at the Central City Public Library in St. Petersburg on September 27, 2014. Photo: Creative Commons Russian authorities have denied the well-documented allegation and sentenced Nevzorov to eight years in prison. He left Russia soon after the war started and was not present in the courtroom. Nevzorov’s spouse reports on Instagram that the couple is now staying in Israel. Yevgeny Prigozhin leads the mercenary group Wagner. Photo: POOL / Reuters Putin’s close associate and head of the private army Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, says they will still go after that journalist’s income. – Dear Aleksandr Glebovich, they gave you 8 years, but it is indifferent to you, as they do not find you in Russia, writes Prigozhin in a post on Telegram. – But it’s painful to lose the business, he writes further, and promises to take the advertising company Metronom from the journalist. Tightening the sentence is seen as yet another restriction of freedom of expression in Russia. Over the past two weeks, several critical voices have been punished for speaking out. A law that came into force after Russia attacked Ukraine makes it illegal to criticize the Russian army. Last year, local politician Ilya Jashin was sentenced to 8.5 years in a penal colony for calling the murders in the Ukrainian city of Butsha a massacre. The foundation of Nobel laureate Sakharov and the independent website Meduza have both been declared “undesirable organisations”. The lawyer for the Helsinki Group meets the press, after a hearing on the liquidation of the human rights group in Russia. Photo: EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA / Reuters This means, for example, that it is a criminal offense to cooperate with them and to share links to their websites. The sister organization of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, the Helsinki Group, has also been declared undesirable. They are the oldest human rights organization in Russia. Inna Sangadzhieva of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, herself from Russia, tells news that the sentence against Nevzorov is primarily a signal to the Russian population. – They will make ordinary people think: “If Nevzorov himself has been given eight years in prison, what are they going to do with me?” That’s the purpose, I think. A “quiet practice” The number of people in Russia who have been arrested on suspicion of being foreign agents has increased markedly since the invasion of Ukraine. 240 foreign agents have been registered since the invasion began. From 2012 until the war broke out last year, the total number was under 100. You can also see that the regime is punishing more Russians who criticize them or show opposition to the war, says Sangadzhieva. Sangadzhieva believes the sentence against the journalist was put as a signal to the Russian people. The picture is from a shopping street in Nizhny Novgorod. Photo: NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA / AFP – It seems like a form of revenge for Russia losing the war in Ukraine, that the reprisals are increasing against those who may be against them internally. – It spreads fear in the Russian population, so that they will not think freely in any way. They must march in step and follow Russian state policy. Inna Sangadzhieva in the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. Photo: The Norwegian Helsingforskomiteen One result of the restriction of freedom of expression is that conversations about politics and the war mostly take place in the home, and between people who trust each other. – There have been many cases since the war started of a kind of silence practice. People are encouraged to notify the authorities if people criticize them. – School teachers, restaurant employees and regular users of social media indicate people who have spoken out critically, and the prosecutor’s office is quick to open court cases against those who speak out. New form of demonstration Sangadzhieva says the Russian regime behaves like a “psychopathic monster”, which treats everything the population does as wrong. – It creates quite a lot of uncertainty among Russians, and you can also see from the few opinion polls that are carried out, that there are quite high depression figures among Russians. You don’t understand what is happening. Recently, however, a new form of protest has been seen in several places in Russia, she says, which rather exercises a “soft power” against the authorities. A woman lays flowers in memory of those killed in the attack that hit an apartment block in Dnipro, Ukraine. Photo: – / AFP For example, after the bombing of an apartment block in Dnipro, Ukraine, people in Russia started laying flowers at the monuments of several Ukrainian writers, both in the big cities and in the countryside. This has been done in 57 places in Russia, according to Sangadzhieva. – It is spontaneous and not coordinated, but it seems that it happens in many cities. The police don’t know how to react. – I think the potential for protest exists. Something is going on in secret, but people are trying to express their opinion in different ways, and I think that is what confuses the totalitarian authorities. news in Butsja: – Still lying dead in the streets
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