London Journalist Ivan Safronov was sentenced to 22 years in prison by the Moscow City Court this Monday (5), as another indication of the relentless pressure on the press by the regime of Vladimir Putin, which has intensified after Russia’s war with Ukraine. penal colony for “high treason”.
Safronov’s case received international attention, with protests from human rights institutions and the European Union for his release. The prosecution asked for 24 years in prison.
According to the state agency RIA Novosti, he was also fined 500,000 rubles, and after his release he will have to serve the restriction of freedom for another two years. When the sentence was announced, fans applauded him, and the defense said it would appeal.
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Journalists convicted of former charges in Russia
Since the start of the war with Ukraine, the government of Vladimir Putin has adopted new forms of censorship and repression of journalism and intensified the use of existing legal instruments.
Journalists and activists accused or prosecuted prior to the conflict are prosecuted and sentenced to severe penalties.
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The case of Ivan Safranov is an example of this. A former military correspondent for Russian newspapers Kommersant and Vedomosti has been in prison since July 2020 on treason charges for allegedly providing information to a foreign country.
At the time of his arrest, he was an adviser to the head of the Russian space program Roscosmos.
The Russian intelligence agency, the FSB, accused Safronov of passing information on Russian soldiers in Syria to political scientist Demuri Voronin, who became a Russian citizen, in 2015. And in 2017, through his Czech friend Martin Larysh, he allegedly surpassed him. Confidential information to Czech special services.
According to the BBC’s Russian Service, the main reason for the persecution of Safronov was an article about the sending of Russian fighters to Egypt.
At a court hearing in Moscow on August 30, a prosecutor demanded that Safronov be sentenced to 24 years in prison, fined 500,000 rubles ($8,170) and sentenced to two years of limited probation after his release from prison.
Journalist rejects deal to avoid conviction
Another prosecutor had previously suggested that Safronov could plead guilty in exchange for a 12-year prison sentence, which the journalist denied.
Last week, Russian research site Proekt leaked a copy of Safronov’s indictment, reporting that the classified information he allegedly shared with Czech intelligence was already public.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said the same day that authorities rejected Safronov’s request to add Proekt’s investigation to his case.
According to the Meduza news site, Safronov, who refused to make a deal with the investigators, said:
“If you believe the claim, at one point (anonymous), I discovered something hidden from some people (also anonymous) on a date (anonymous).
They searched for the holders of this legendary secret – but did not find it. Because? I have an answer: because there is no one about whom I have discovered anything secret.”
Safronov’s defense claimed that political scientist Demuri Voronin, who witnessed the prosecution, acquitted the journalist.
“The Russian prosecutor’s call to convict journalist Ivan Safronov is shocking, even given the low standards that the country’s government has already set,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director in New York.
“The authorities should immediately release Safronov, drop all charges against him, and stop arresting independent voices for their work,” he said.
Two of the journalist’s lawyers were forced to leave the country, and another is in prison on charges of “forgery” against the military during the war with Ukraine.
The independent Russian broadcaster Rain, which was monitoring the trial, reported that Ivan Safronov said “I love you” to his fans when the verdict was announced, and he was applauded.
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Russian lawyer Pavel Chikov, the head of the organization that supports political prisoners Agora, said on his Telegram channel that he could not find punishment in treason cases, which have more than 20 years in prison.
He explained the court’s understanding of Article 275 of the Penal Code, which stipulates a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The court sentenced Ivan Safronov to more than 20 years in prison for being charged with two episodes. The punishment for each is given separately. Later, the court determined the time period by adding it partially or completely.
Penalties for treason cases have always been long, but there has been a notable upward trend in recent years, but that did not apply to Safronov, although the convictions of those who plead guilty were commuted, the lawyer said.
Manifesto of Russian journalists for the release of Safronov
While Ivan Safronov is not the only journalist prosecuted or imprisoned in Russia, the length of the prosecution’s proposed sentence, the conditions of detention, and the charges sparked widespread protests.
In one, the main independent media outlets signed a joint manifesto, stating that although this was a “terrible period”, the Russian intelligence agency (FSB) “provided no evidence of the journalists’ guilt.”
The text also refers to statements on the Proekt website:
A regular internet search showed that the allegations against Ivan Safronov could not stand up to criticism: At the time of writing the materials, the information used was publicly available for all to see.
The manifesto states that there is no evidence that the prosecution “could prove that journalists had access to classified material, let alone transmit it to any intelligence service,” and that it charged foreign intelligence services in retaliation for the case. his job as a journalist.
The authors point out that the moment of sharp pressure in Russia due to the war with Ukraine renders the disclosures made by the Proekt website useless:
In a normal situation, the publication of Proekt causes a scandal and leads to the complete acquittal of the journalist and the punishment of those who unlawfully persecuted him.
But in our reality the court is calmly preparing to convict the innocent and there is little hope of acquittal. These are the statistics of Russian courts.
For journalists and independent organizations, Safronov’s conviction is “revenge”.
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source: Noticias
