Russian journalist Maria Ponomarenko, who was arrested in St Petersburg in April on charges of “spreading fake news” about the Russian armed forces, was sent to a psychiatric hospital in Siberia this week, according to local media and her lawyer.
Ponomarenko is a reporter for the news site RusNews, who runs a Telegram channel to share information outside the Kremlin’s control. In a message on the app, her colleagues confirmed her transfer from a detention center to a medical facility.
The 44-year-old journalist is accused by Vladimir Putin’s government of spreading information about the Russian bombing of a theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 16, where hundreds of civilians were refugees and died.
Journalist punished under Russian fake news law
With the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia quickly changed its laws Sentencing anyone who discloses information about the conflict that does not follow the narrative spread by the government to five to 10 years in prison.
Maria Ponomarenko was arrested on April 23 and prosecuted under this law, which stipulates the use of the term “special operation”, not war, to refer to the occupation of neighboring lands.
Days after his arrest, a court ordered the journalist to be detained for two months, and the investigation ended at the end of June. The video shows the moment of his arrest.
???? Russian journalist Maria Ponomarenko, St. Petersburg and prosecuted for “willfully spreading false information about the Russian army.” Here he is handcuffed to a “traffic cop” for a reason. HERO pic.twitter.com/CUXu1LcYec
— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) 25 April 2022
As a result, he was sent for evaluation to Altay Clinical Psychology Hospital, where he was expected to stay for 28 days according to his lawyer.
“He is not allowed to receive letters or visits from relatives. Activist Yana Drobhokhod said in an interview with RFE/RL that she can only meet with her lawyers.
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Speaking to the British Daily Mail, Ponomarenko’s lawyer, Sergei Podolsky, claims that one of the journalist’s two daughters has been made a witness for the prosecution by the Russian authorities:
“Investigators questioned Maria’s underage daughters, and the testimony of one of them became evidence against her mother.”
In April, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had already reported that the journalist was detained in Russia, citing the interrogation of his 16-year-old daughter by country agents.
In a June post on the RusNews Telegram channel, Ponomarenko said, reported how you coped with incarceration in the detention center barnaul, Before he was transferred to a psychiatric hospital in Siberia.
In one passage he says:
“The problem of being in detention is not just social isolation. One of the main problems is health, or rather, its inevitable loss.
And the above has to do with two factors: a lack of medication and a disgusting diet.”
The journalist is accused by the Russian authorities of sending messages to another group called “No Censorship” on Telegram, where he would write to the criticism of the journalist, “It is impossible to remain silent knowing that thousands of innocent people have died”. Attack on the Mariupol theater. .
The Russian Ministry of Defense denies that Russian forces were involved in the attack and blames Ukrainian nationalists for the deaths of hundreds of civilians.
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source: Noticias
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