Words always carry more weight in Russia. Alexei Gorinov, an elected official in Moscow’s local government, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for on Friday, July 8, amid a wave of repression he denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to quash any criticism of Vladimir Putin’s offensive to to silence. “All efforts of civil society must be made to end the war and lead to the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory,” he said last March in particular.
The judge found the 60-year-old guilty of spreading “manifestly false information” about the Russian military in “their duty of service” and doing so as part of an organized group motivated by political hatred. “The defendant’s recovery is impossible without imprisonment,” the judge said, before being sentenced to seven years in a penal colony. Before announcing this verdict, the trial public applauded the defendant, which led to the spectators who had come to support him being expelled from the room.
Shortly before the verdict was announced, the grey-haired man, standing in the glass cage reserved for the accused, held up a crossed-out sheet of paper with the inscription: “Do you still need this war?” to the cameras with a tense face and a piercing gaze. The day before, during his trial, Alexei Gorinov had insisted he was “against all wars” and stressed that his father “returned damaged from World War II”. He also cited the names of Ukrainian cities, such as Boutcha, where Russian forces have been accused of war crimes and ill-treatment that Russian authorities believe are lies or fabrications.
Alexei Gorinov, a lawyer by training, was arrested in April for denouncing Moscow’s “war” and “aggression” against Ukraine during a March 15 session of his district assembly. The session was filmed and broadcast on YouTube, which constitutes aggravating circumstances for the court. A colleague of Alexei Gorinov, Elena Kotenochkina, is accused of the same thing, according to the Mediazona website (in Russian), which attended the hearing. But she is not being convicted because she fled Russia, like many militants since the war began.
Alexei Gorinov is the first opponent, an elected official sentenced to prison for his positions against Russian intervention in Ukraine, but other activists are currently in detention awaiting trial. Since February 24, when Russian forces invaded Ukraine, the authorities have enacted several laws to severely penalize those who publicly condemned the attack and to ban the use of the words “war” and “invasion.” During the verdict, the judge stated that Alexei Gorinov’s statements did not comply with official instructions from the Defense Ministry.
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