Russia on Tuesday opened a criminal case against a well-known journalist for publishing “false information” about the actions of the Russian military in Ukraine, a recently introduced charge punishable by 15 years in prison.
The Investigative Committee, in charge of the main cases, announced that it had “opened a criminal investigation against journalist Alexander Nevzorov”, accusing him of having “knowingly published false information on a deliberate bombardment of a maternity hospital in Mariupol by the Russian army.
“These publications were accompanied by unreliable photographs of civilians affected by the bombing […] The Russian Ministry of Defense has already officially announced that this information is false,” he added in a statement.
The Investigative Committee said it was currently trying to locate Mr. Nevzorov, 63, who was also an MP in the 2000s.
This is the first known case of this kind against a journalist in Russia since the adoption in early March of a law providing for up to 15 years in prison for any information on the Russian army deemed untrue by the Kremlin.
A former television presenter, the journalist now publishes mainly on social networks and on YouTube, where his channel has more than 1.6 million subscribers. His last four videos each have more than three million views.
hard sentences
The case against him comes in a context of growing repression against the media and journalists in parallel with the Russian military operation in Ukraine.
The Kremlin and the media it controls present this intervention as an operation aimed at “denazifying” and “demilitarizing” Ukraine, as well as preventing a “genocide” against the Russian-speaking populations.
Using the word “war” to describe this intervention or to refer to actions against civilians is theoretically liable to prosecution.
In addition to the law punishing “lies” against the army, Russian MPs on Tuesday adopted a similar law providing for up to 15 years in prison for those who denigrate Moscow’s action abroad.
In this context, many independent media, Russian and foreign, have been blocked in recent weeks, as well as several social networks, including Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.