Press Release, 22.08.2023

Photo: Mikhail Afanasyev in court / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

The public prosecutor asked for six years in prison for Mikhail Afanasyev, a member of Yabloko and a journalist from Abakan. He has been kept in a pre-trial detention centre for the second year already on the charges of spreading “fake news” about the army (Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Afanasyev is accused of publishing an article in the Novy Focus online media about the refusal of riot police from Khakassia to go to Ukraine a month and a half after the start of the special military operation.

According to lawyer Yelena Ilyushenko, today the public prosecutor demanded that Afanasyev be sentenced to six years in a penal colony with a three-year ban on journalistic activities.

It should be noted that Mikhail Afanasyev two-times won the Andrei Sakharov Prize “For Journalism as an Act”, and a laureate of the Freedom of Speech Prize by the Swedish Publicists’ Association.

On 29 August, Mikhail Afanasyev will make his final statement in court.

The Yabloko website published one of the letters (https://eng.yabloko.ru/30921-2/) Mikhail Afanasyev sent to his fellow party members a few months ago, “The mind refuses to believe that all this is happening.” A letter from journalist Mikhail Afanasyev from the pre-trial detention centre is about the battle between common sense and abnormality.

It should be noted that five members of Yabloko became defendants in criminal cases related to the “special military operation”. The leaders of the Yakutsk and Kamchatka branches of Yabloko, Anatoly Nogovitsyn and Vladimir Yefimov, were found guilty of “discrediting the army” and sentenced to 200,000 roubles each. In August 2023, a criminal case on “discrediting the army” against Nikolai Yegorov, the leader of the Vologda regional branch of Yabloko, was submitted to court. In June 2023, Vasily Neustroyev, Chairman of the Frunzensky local branch of Yabloko in St. Petersburg, became a defendant in several criminal cases at once, including the case of “fake” about the army. Like Mikhail Afanasyev, Vasily Neustroyev has been enjailed since his arrest.