A Moscow court has sentenced a veteran human rights advocate to two years and six months in prison for speaking out against the war in Ukraine. Oleg Orlov, 70, was found guilty of 'repeatedly discrediting' the Russian army in an article denouncing the invasion of Ukraine. Orlov, co-chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial, has dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
Orlov's conviction marks a harsh crackdown on dissent in Russia, with the prosecution seeking a more severe punishment despite an earlier fine imposed on him. The prosecution alleged that Orlov's article was driven by hostility towards Russian values and the military.
Memorial, in a statement, condemned Orlov's sentence as an attempt to silence the human rights movement in Russia and pledged to continue its work. The verdict drew support from dozens of individuals, including 18 Western diplomats.
US Ambassador to Moscow Lynne Tracy expressed concern over the outcome, highlighting Orlov's decades-long advocacy for Russian rights. The court's decision to imprison Orlov follows a retrial initiated after a lower court voided a previous fine.
In a separate case, a man in Grozny was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for burning a Quran in front of a mosque. The individual claimed he did so at the behest of Ukrainian special services. Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov's son was previously seen assaulting the man in detention.
February 27 also marked the ninth anniversary of the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, a prominent Russian opposition figure. Nemtsov's killing in 2015 dealt a blow to Putin's opponents, echoing the recent death of another opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, in a penal colony. The perpetrators of Nemtsov's murder were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
