Journalist Nadezhda Kevorkova was fined 600 rubles in a case of justifying terrorism.
She was released from custody in the courtroom, сообщил Kevorkova's lawyer Kaloy AkhilgovToday the prosecutor Evgeny Mayorov demanded six years in prison and a fine of 500 thousand rubles for the journalist.
Nadezhda Kevorkova She specialized in Islamic issues and worked in the Middle East, including Syria, Iran, Iraq, and the Gaza Strip. Her work has appeared in various media outlets, including Novaya Gazeta and Russia Today.
The court found 66-year-old Kevorkova guilty of publishing two posts on her personal Telegram channel.
The first appeared in 2018 and was a reprint of an article by a deceased journalist. Orkhan Dzhemal about the armed rebellion in Nalchik in 2005.
The second post was published in 2020 and was dedicated to the policies of the Afghan Taliban (Kevorkova called them "handsome guys" who "squeeze their captives away from the Kabul regime").
Journalist detained in May last year, since then she has been in pretrial detention. Defense claimed, that experts did not find any threats of violence, incitement to hatred, or propaganda of an ideology of violence in Kevorkova's posts.
The criminal case against her was called politically motivated: Kevorkova's publications about torture irritated the security forces. Furthermore, her son Vasily Polonsky works for Novaya Gazeta and covers trials in politically motivated cases.
"Keeping a journalist in jail for the words he wrote is strange," said Nadezhda Kevorkova in her final remarks.
The guilty verdict was handed down despite the fact that the Russian authorities have been are discussing removal of the Taliban from the list of terrorist organizations.
