Reacting to the Shipunovsky District Court ruling to extend the six-year sentence of Maria Ponomarenko, Russian journalist and anti-war activist, for speaking out against Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Natalia Zviagina, Amnesty International’s Russia Director, said:
“The Russian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Maria Ponomarenko. Sentencing her to six years imprisonment for merely speaking out against the war, condemning the Russian bombing of the drama theatre in Mariupol, and mourning the loss of innocent lives was already unconscionable. Extending that sentence under spurious charges of attacking two guards – clearly a smokescreen to punish her for not changing her views and for standing up for justice – represents a new low in the authorities’ treatment of Maria.”
Extending that sentence under spurious charges of attacking two guards – clearly a smokescreen to punish her for not changing her views and for standing up for justice – represents a new low in the authorities’ treatment of Maria
Natalia Zviagina, Amnesty International’s Russia Director
“Since the start of the war of aggression against Ukraine, the Russian authorities have routinely and brazenly used tactics to silence dissent, using spurious charges to imprison critics on politically motivated grounds. The Russian authorities must stop the war against Ukraine, stop the repression of their own people, repeal the ‘war censorship’ legislation and release all those imprisoned under it.”
Background
On 27 March, the Shipunovsky District Court granted an additional one year and 10 months to Maria Ponomarenko and ordered her to undergo outpatient psychiatric treatment upon her release. Taking into account the partial concurrence of sentences, the 22-month sentence will not be automatically added to Maria Ponomarenko’s previous term of imprisonment, meaning her combined prison term is less than seven years and 10 months.
Maria Ponomarenko is a journalist with the online RusNews media and an activist from Barnaul, Altai Krai. On 15 February 2023, she was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment under Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code (“disseminating knowingly false information about the Russian Armed Forces”). The charges stemmed from her social media post about the bombing of the drama theatre in Mariupol, where hundreds of civilians were reportedly sheltering.
She is serving her term in penal colony IK-6, in Shipunovo, a village 175 km from Barnaul. Throughout her imprisonment, she has faced ill-treatment, including solitary confinement in a punishment cell (SHIZO) – a harsh, cramped and isolating detention unit used to break prisoners’ spirits through severe restrictions and deprivation – where she had been placed multiple times on spurious grounds, and denied adequate health care, including for her deteriorating mental health.
In November 2023, just months after Maria Ponomarenko’s transfer to IK-6, the authorities initiated another criminal case against her. This time it was under Article 321(2) of the Russian Criminal Code, for allegedly attacking two male penal colony officers, charges she firmly denies. Her additional criminal prosecution continues the trend whereby the Russian authorities impose additional penitentiary sanctions on those who are imprisoned on politically motivated charges, as the case of Aleksei Gorinov, another powerful anti-war voice, demonstrates.