In a Russia subject to intense repression on any comments critical of the war in Ukraine, arrests, fines and prison sentences are raining down on anyone making the slightest statement that could appear to be contrary to those of those in power. And denunciations flourish. A case, combining the two ingredients – denunciation and repression – hit the headlines: a pediatrician was accused by the mother of one of her patients of having made comments against the war and those who participate in it. She was sentenced on Tuesday November 12 to five and a half years in prison.
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From our correspondent in Moscow,
The hall of this ordinary court in the Russian capital was full for the verdict in the Nadezhda Buyanova case. The public was banned for his utterance. But when the sentence was announced, someone in the audience shouted “ Shame on you! “. Three people suspected of having made this comment were immediately arrested.
Nadezhda Buyanova found herself in the crosshairs of security forces on January 31, 2024 when the companion of a soldier missing at the front in Ukraine denounced her. This mother of a seven-year-old boy, treated by the pediatrician, accused her of having told her during a private conversation that her husband had disappeared in Ukraine “ was a legitimate target » for the Ukrainian armed forces and that “ Russia was an aggressor country and attacked Ukrainian civilians “.
For the pediatrician’s lawyers, these are the only elements against him in the case. The latter announced that they would appeal.
During the hearing, the pediatrician, a petite 68-year-old woman with short-cut white hair and dressed all in black, was seated in the defendants’ glass cage. She had her words: “ Every person should have strong inner beliefs. Everyone should show empathy for each other “.
The opponent’s father Ilyia Yashinsentenced to eight and a half years in prison for forgery against the Russian army then released last summer during a prisoner exchange between Moscow and the West, was also in court. “ It’s a horror to give such pain to a woman of this age. “, he told the press.