Russia jails a hairdresser over neighbour claim of spreading fake news about army

In Russia, a St. Petersburg hairdresser who was accused of disseminating false information about the Russian army was sentenced to five years and two months in prison.

A Russian court on April 15 imprisoned a woman for more than five years for criticizing the army on social media, reportedly after she was denounced by her neighbor, RBC reported.

Anna Alexandrova denied posting eight anti-war statements on social media and insisted that a land dispute with a neighbor sparked the case.

In November 2023, 47-year-old hairdresser Anna Aleksandrova was detained for posting under a false identity on VKontakte, the most popular social network in Russia.

She was charged by prosecutors with publishing information unfavorable to Russia’s war in Ukraine (called by authorities ‘a special military operation’) and providing advice to Russian men on how to prevent military mobilization.

Within weeks of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia made it illegal to knowingly broadcast false information about the military and to discredit the armed forces.

Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has filed hundreds of criminal lawsuits against its people for disseminating “fake news” about the army.

She received a five-year, two-month prison sentence from the Pushkinsky District Court in Saint Petersburg, along with a three-year social media ban, the court’s press service posted on Telegram.

According to the news outlet Mediazona, Aleksandrova entered a not guilty plea during the trial, claiming that she was denounced by a neighbor with whom she was involved in a land dispute.

She had spent more than a year in pre-trial custody and has a son and a daughter.During her detention, investigators knocked down the front door of her apartment, and one of them threatened to “destroy” her and her son, she told the news outlet Current Time.

Since being imprisoned, her health has gotten worse, according to Mediazona.

Russian authorities have launched an assault on dissent since beginning their war in Ukraine, which human rights defenders have compared to mass repression during the Soviet dictator Stalin’s times.

Photo credit: Pushkinsky District Court in Saint Petersburg