As of: February 27, 2024, 1:30 p.m
By: Lisa Mahnke
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Press
Split
Activist Oleg Orlov is imprisoned for his criticism of the war in Ukraine.
The opposition in Russia is shrinking.
The pattern is clear.
Moscow – Oleg Orlov appeared in the courtroom with handcuffs.
The renowned human rights activist then felt the full severity of the state for his criticism of Russia's war in Ukraine: Orlov was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for his criticism of the actions in the Ukraine war.
The former co-chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization Memorial, which is now banned in Russia, is considered internationally to be a politically persecuted person and is one of the few opposition figures who remained in Russia even after the start of the war.
Several Western diplomats also took part in the verdict announcement in the court of Moscow's Golovinsky district.
The human rights activist had actually already received a relatively reasonable fine of 150,000 rubles (around 1,505 euros) in October 2023 for “discrediting” the Russian army, but in December a judge overturned the verdict and the trial began again.
Even back then, the activist's supporters feared a prison sentence.
Critical article on the Ukraine war forms the basis for proceedings in Russia - Orlov remains optimistic
The trial against Orlov ran for several months, triggered by a November 2022 article entitled “They wanted fascism, they got it.”
The text points, among other things, to the suffering of the Ukrainian population.
The Ukraine war also dealt “a serious blow to Russia’s future,” the article said.
Among other things, the activist was arrested for a one-man protest in Moscow.
He demonstrated with a poster that, according to the
Moscow Times
, read: “Our unwillingness to know the truth and our silence make us complicit in this crime.”
Orlov told The
Moscow Times
before his sentencing that the prison sentence was "a demand from above."
Some time ago he compared the behavior towards critics of the regime today with that of the Soviet Union.
Nevertheless, the human rights activist remained optimistic about change in Russia: “I believe in a better future.
There is a true future ahead of us, and behind it there is nothing but the past.”
Oleg Orlov is led out of the courtroom in handcuffs after being sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
© ALEXANDER NEMENOV / AFP
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In this second sentencing, prosecutors allege “a motive of hostility and hatred toward military personnel.”
Orlov said in a hearing this month, according to the
Moscow Times
, "I plead not guilty and the charge is not clear to me." Orlov at one point described the trial as "an opportunity to put my ideas and beliefs into the public eye."
UN calls on Russia to withdraw Orlov verdict: “Classic example of a repressive system”
The UN special reporter on the human rights situation in Russia, Mariana Katzarowa, called on Russian authorities to immediately withdraw the verdict.
“The Orlov trial is not just an attack on the individual, but an orchestrated attempt to silence the voices of human rights defenders in Russia and any criticism of the war against Ukraine,” Katzarowa said.
“It is a prime example of a repressive system in which law enforcement authorities and the judiciary are exploited for political purposes.”
According to the AFP
news agency, around 200 people gathered
in front of the courtroom to say goodbye to Orlov.
The human rights activist had spent much of his life documenting rights violations within the Memorial group until it was disbanded by Russian authorities in 2021.
A year later, in 2022, the organization, founded in 1989, received the Nobel Peace Prize.
The conviction is in the context of the general persecution of Russian opposition members, which appears to be taking on new dimensions shortly before the Russia election.
A little over a week ago, Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny died in an isolated penal colony in the Arctic.
Meanwhile, opposition politician Boris Nadezhdin is campaigning for a presidential candidacy against the judiciary after some of the required signatures were declared invalid.
Now Orlov's fate has also hardened.
(dpa/lismah)