“Russian authorities should be ashamed of the six-year prison sentence given to journalist Maria Ponomarenko, whose sole so-called crime was publishing information about the war in Ukraine that did not conform to the official narrative,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities should not contest Ponomarenko’s appeal, drop all the charges against her, and stop jailing independent voices.”
On Wednesday, February 15, a court in the Siberian city of Barnaul convicted Ponomarenko of spreading false information about the Russian military and sentenced her to six years in prison, along with a five-year ban on journalistic activities, according to those reports. Ponomarenko’s lawyer Dmitriy Shitov told CPJ via messaging app that the journalist planned to appeal the verdict and is imprisoned while that appeal is pending. Continue
