On 30 September 2024, a court in Moscow sentenced journalist Maria Menshikova to seven years of prison in absentia on charges of “justifying terrorism”. Menshikova is the head of the news section of Doxa, an independent Russian anti-war and human rights-oriented online news outlet. The journalist currently lives outside of Russia.
Russian authorities first opened a criminal case against Menshikova in April 2023. Investigators reportedly found evidence of justifying terrorism and incitement to terrorist activities in one of her social media posts.
According to Russian Telegram channel Baza, the case was opened for a post Menshikova wrote on Doxa’s page on Vkontakte (a Russian social media service resembling Facebook), in which the journalist asked users to write letters to people detained in Russia for setting fire to military recruitment centers. Russian independent media outlet MediaZona registered no less than 70 such attacks across the country since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“The fascist regime has [turned] everything upside down: war is peace, freedom is slavery. And the main enemy of fascists is the solidarity of people who care.[This solidarity] is now equated with ‘terrorism’,” Menshikova said, in response to reports on the criminal case opened against her.
On 29 May 2024, Russian independent media reported that Menshikova had also been put on Russia’s “list of terrorists and extremists”.