Eleven years in prison for illegal speech: reactions to the verdict against Russian opposition politician Lev Shlosberg

Filed 1w ago · Via Meduza · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Agnieszka Kwiecień, Nova · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A Pskov court sentenced Yabloko deputy chairman Lev Shlosberg, 63, to 11 years and one month in a penal colony for repeatedly "discrediting" the Russian army and spreading "fake news" about the military.

The formal triggers were his participation in public debates and a repost of a Daily Mirror cover featuring Vladimir Putin. Shlosberg is among the few Russian politicians who have remained inside the country while openly opposing the war in Ukraine.

In his final statement he spoke of the need to end the fighting between Russia and Ukraine, reportedly interrupted repeatedly by the judge. Reactions from fellow party members, journalists, and politicians ranged from grief to fury, with several noting the sentence exceeds what courts typically hand down for murder or rape.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A legal system that reserves its harshest arithmetic for words has told you exactly what it fears, and it is not violence. The verdict is not a finding of fact; it is a price list, published so that everyone else can read the numbers and do the math on their own silence. That is the entire function of the proceeding, and it is the one thing about it nobody needs a court to explain.

Source: Read the original at Meduza → Scored: Myst · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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