Kremlin critic fined for failing to report own activities - while in prison
Pakistan
Kremlin critic fined for failing to report own activities - while in prison
(Reuters) - Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza was fined 50,000 roubles ($560) on Friday for not providing a full report of his conduct as a registered "foreign agent", according to a court statement, despite the fact he is serving a 25-year term for treason in a Siberian penal colony.
People or organisations designated as "foreign agents", a term that carries Cold War connotations of betrayal, must regularly submit detailed reports on their activities and finances.
Kara-Murza, a Russian and British citizen, was jailed for 25 years in April for treason and spreading "false information" about Russia's war in Ukraine.
He was declared a "foreign agent" on April 22, 2022 - the same day he was placed in detention after making speeches in the United States and Europe accusing Russia of bombing civilians in Ukraine.
Kara-Murza is one of a handful of prominent opposition figures who stayed in Russia and continued to speak out against President Vladimir Putin after his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a "special military operation".
Another jailed opposition activist, Ilya Yashin, was fined 45,000 roubles ($500) by a Moscow court for failing to attach a mandatory rider advertising his "foreign agent" status in capital letters to his posts on the Telegram messaging app.
"I don't have any opportunity to post materials, I'm in a penal colony, and before that (I was) in a pre-trial detention centre," the state news agency RIA quoted Yashin as telling the court by video link from his prison in the Smolensk region. "I reject the status of a foreign agent."
Yashin, a longtime ally of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was sentenced last December to 8-1/2 years in prison for statements on his YouTube channel about war crimes allegedly committed by Russian forces in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. Russia denies attacking civilian targets.
