MOSCOW — A Russian journalist was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in jail on Tuesday on expenses of “extremism” over her hyperlinks to an opposition group, a part of an unrelenting crackdown on dissent.
A courtroom within the metropolis of Ufa in Russia’s Bashkortostan area discovered Olga Komleva, 46, responsible of involvement with a company of late opposition chief Alexei Navalny that was formally branded “extremist.” Following her closed-door trial, the choose additionally discovered Komleva responsible on expenses of “spreading false data” concerning the Russian navy. She rejected the fees.
Komleva, who has been in custody since her arrest in March 2024, had labored as a volunteer on the regional department of Navalny’s Basis for Combating Corruption earlier than it was outlawed in 2021 in a transfer broadly seen as politically motivated. She additionally labored for an unbiased information outlet and coated protests within the area.
Navalny was President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest and most outstanding foe and relentlessly campaigned towards official corruption in Russia. Navalny died in February 2024 in an Arctic penal colony whereas serving a 19-year sentence on quite a few expenses, together with working an extremist group, which he had rejected as politically pushed.
Russian authorities have intensified their crackdown on dissent after the Kremlin despatched troops into Ukraine in February 2022, relentlessly focusing on rights teams, unbiased media, members of civil society organizations, LGBTQ+ activists and sure non secular affiliations. A whole lot of individuals have been jailed and hundreds of others have fled the nation.
In January, three lawyers who as soon as represented Navalny had been convicted and given sentences starting from 3½ to 5 years on expenses of involvement with an “extremist” group. Four journalists were convicted in April on extremism expenses for working for Navalny’s group and sentenced them every to 5½ years in jail.