As reported on 24 March 2023, journalist Maria Ponomarenko, who was recently sentenced to six years of prison for allegedly spreading “fake news” on the war in Ukraine, said she was repeatedly beaten by wards at a detention centre and personnel at a psychiatric hospital.
In a letter written to RusNews, the online media outlet she previously published for, Ponomarenko said she was taken to a detention centre in Biysk, in Russia’s Altai region, where wards attempted to search her. She refused and became “hysteric”, according to her own words, following which wards “threw [her] on the search table, wrapped [her] hands and tied them”, she wrote. “They beat me while they dragged me into the ambulance, on my back, chest, stomach, head, [then] threw me on the steps.”
Ponomarenko was then taken to a local psychiatric hospital, where she was reportedly beaten by a medical staff member, who hit her on her cheeks, stomach and chest for “not drinking her cocoa on time”.
On 15 February 2023, journalist Maria Ponomarenko was sentenced to six years in prison for allegedly “discrediting” the Russian army by publishing information on the Russian bombing of a theater in Mariupol, during a Russian offensive on the Ukrainain city in March 2022. Ponomarenko, who works for online media RusNews, was also barred from working as a reporter and from any online activities for five years. The journalist had published the information on the bombings on her Telegram channel, which she named “No Censorship”, and which had an audience of 1600 users at the time.