a fine for his video, prison for the sign?

MARINA OVSYANNIKOVA. The Russian journalist arrested for holding up a sign denouncing the war in Ukraine was fined on Tuesday, March 15, 2022, for a video posted on social networks. Once released, she still faces prison.

[Mise à jour le 15 mars à 17h27] First conviction against Marina Ovsyannikova. The Russian journalist who held up a sign hostile to the war in Ukraine in the middle of the television news was sentenced on Tuesday, March 15, 2022, to a fine of 30,000 rubles (256 euros). But this sentence does not concern his appearance on the TV set. This is indeed a decision taken following the video that she had recorded and then broadcast on social networks (read below), calling in particular for illegal gatherings. “I continue to believe that Russia committed a crime by attacking Ukraine. I do not withdraw any of my words, it was indeed an anti-war statement,” she told the court, as reports the independent Russian online media Mediazona. Released, she has not yet finished with justice. Indeed, another investigation, this time criminal, was carried out following his action carried out live on television, Monday, March 14. She risks, in this context, up to 15 years in prison. President Emmanuel Macron has announced that he wants to grant him protection.

“No war”, a sign against the war in Ukraine in the middle of Russian JT

“No to war. Don’t believe the propaganda. You are being lied to here”. These are the words written in Cyrillic on a sign held up on Monday March 14, 2022 by Marina Ovsyannikova in the middle of the television news on the main Russian news channel, Pervy Kanal. While the camera was trained on the JT presenter, the journalist burst in behind her, carrying her sign. The latter remained on the screen for a few seconds before the channel’s technical team rushed to broadcast the images of a hospital, cutting off the presenter in her tracks, who had remained impassive until then.

15 years in prison for the Russian journalist?

Arrested and placed in police custody, she faces up to 15 years in prison under article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code punishing any “public dissemination of deliberately false information on the use of the armed forces of the Russian Federation ” according to the Russian press agency Mug, citing a police source. She must be tried in Moscow, as reported by the Russian media Novaya Gazetta.

On the sidelines of a trip, Emmanuel Macron announced, Tuesday, March 15, “to launch diplomatic steps to offer protection either at the embassy or also asylum protection. I will have the opportunity during my next meeting with the President Putin to offer this solution in a direct and very concrete way.”

A video recorded before holding up the sign

Shortly before her action Marina Ovsyannikova had recorded a video, later published on social networks, in which she explained that she was “ashamed of having allowed lies to be broadcast on television” and of having “done[t] propaganda for the Kremlin”, denouncing the invasion of Russia in Ukraine: “What is happening now in Ukraine is a crime, and the aggressor is Russia. The responsibility for this crime weighs on the conscience of one man and one only: Vladimir Putin.

In this same video, she explains the reasons for her action: “my father is Ukrainian, my mother is Russian. They have never been enemies. The necklace I wear is the symbol of the need for Russia to immediately stop this fratricidal war. Our fraternal people can still make peace.”