The editor of Forbes magazine was detained in Russia for his posts about Ukraine’s Bucha.
Russian authorities detained a journalist for the Russian edition of Forbes magazine on charges of spreading “false information” about the Russian military. This was announced on Friday by the journalist’s lawyer and Forbes magazine itself.
The detained journalist is Sergey Mingazov. His lawyer, Konstantin Bubon, said that Mingazov was placed in a pre-trial detention cell in Khabarovsk, eastern Russia, where the journalist lives. Forbes magazine, meanwhile, said it had been unable to contact Mingazov.
According to Bubon, Mingazov was detained for sharing publications on the Telegram social network about the events in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, where at the beginning of the invasion the media reported on a number of Ukrainian civilians killed. Bubon added that his client faces up to 10 years in prison for spreading false information.
There are dozens of posts about Buča on Mingaz’s Telegram account, and it is not immediately clear for which specific one he is being investigated. So far, many posts refer to the alleged war crimes of Russian soldiers in Buča. About 430 people follow Mingazov’s Telegram account.
The Russian authorities forbade reporting on the massacre in Buča
At the beginning of the invasion, Russian troops seized the town of Bucha, which is located on the outskirts of Kiev, and remained there for about a month. However, the Kremlin denies that Russian soldiers are executing people in Buch, and has called the pictures from the town, which made the front pages of newspapers around the world, a hoax.
The human rights monitoring organization OVD-Info said that the court in Khabarovsk will decide on taking Mingazov into custody on Saturday.
According to human rights groups, hundreds of Russians have already been detained, fined or imprisoned for criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine. Shortly after the start of the invasion, Russia passed laws according to which it is a crime to knowingly spread, according to the authorities, false information about the Russian military.
July 17, 2023 6:00 AM
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According to AFP, the Russian authorities seem to be focusing primarily on the comments about Bucha. In March, for example, a Russian journalist was sentenced to seven years in prison for articles on alleged Russian war crimes involving Bucha.
Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin is also serving eight and a half years in prison for similar charges, who spoke about the allegations regarding Buchi in a video published on YouTube.
