Russian-American journalist and LGBTQ+ rights activist Maria “Masha” Gessen, a long-time critic of President Vladimir Putin, was sentenced in absentia today to eight years in prison for commenting on the Bukha massacre, happened in 2022 in Ukraine during the Russian occupation of the town north of Kiev.
“The Basmanny District Court of the city of Moscow has imposed a sentence of eight years’ deprivation of liberty,” law in a statement from the court in the Russian capital. The journalist was also “banned from carrying out activities related to the administration of electronic information and telecommunications sites, including the Internet, for a period of 4 years.”
Gessen, who lives abroad, was convicted “under paragraph ‘d’ of part 2 of article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Dissemination to the public of knowingly false information on the employment of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation)”. The journalist had been on trial since the end of last year for commenting on the Bucha massacre, a banned topic in Russia, where Moscow – which has consistently denied any wrongdoing – is accused of killing hundreds of civilians.
Several Russian citizens have been sentenced to various prison terms for exposing the massacre. Last April, Russian journalist Sergei Mingazov, editor of the local edition of the American magazine Forbes, was arrested on charges of spreading “fake news about the army based on hatred or enmity” for sharing a post about the massacre on Telegram. At the end of 2022, Russian opposition figure Ilya Yashin was also sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for exposing “the murder of civilians” in the Ukrainian city.
