An Orlov resident was sentenced to five years in prison for “justifying terrorism” comments on a social network.

The Moscow District Military Court sentenced a resident of Orel to five years in a general regime colony for comments on the social network VKontakte, which it considered to justify terrorism.

The verdict was rendered by the Moscow District Military Court, according to the website of the Orel Region Prosecutor's Office on August 13. The man was found guilty under Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (public justification of terrorism committed using the Internet). The name of the accused is not reported, only the pseudonym S is indicated.

The court found that the Oryol resident published on the VKontakte page “text comments containing signs of justification of the Islamist terrorist organization ISIS*, as well as religious signs of justification of terrorism.”

In addition to a five-year imprisonment, the accused was also banned for three years from engaging in activities related to the administration of Internet sites.

It should be noted that in recent years, cases of trials of Russians who made careless statements on social networks or reposted a recording that raises questions among law enforcement officers have become more frequent. One of the latest scandalous cases was the accusation of extremism against Barnaul resident Maria Motuznaya , due to humorous pictures published on the social network depicting characters from the series “Game of Thrones”.

On August 13, the general director of the social network VKontakte, Andrei Rogozov, spoke out against the initiation of criminal cases for publications on the Internet, and also announced a reform of the privacy system for pages of users of the social network.

“Law enforcement agencies often do not take into account the context, do not distinguish a publication from a repost, and equate an image with a dubious joke to truly dangerous criminal offenses,” he explained his position.