A resident of Abakan was awarded 50 thousand rubles for unfounded criminal prosecution due to posts

The Abakan City Court ordered the Ministry of Finance to pay local resident Artem Yurchenko 50,000 rubles in compensation for non-pecuniary damage for unjustified criminal prosecution in the case of posts on VKontakte. This was reported on June 26 by Mediazona with reference to the lawyer of the international human rights group Agora Vladimir Vasin.

In 2016, two criminal cases were opened against Yurchenko on inciting hatred or enmity (Article 282 of the Criminal Code) due to VKontakte publications. The first of them was filed because of a video about Jews, the second because of a picture depicting “an angel holding a bird by the tail with the inscription “modern Orthodox people”.”

Later, the cases were combined into one proceeding and transferred to the prosecutor's office, but the department did not approve the indictment. In October 2017, the case was closed due to lack of corpus delicti.

“The criminal prosecution lasted 580 days, more than 19 months. During the investigation, it turned out that some of the materials of the case had signs of falsification. The prosecutor did not let this case go to trial. At the same time, it is important to note that Yurchenko has not yet received an official apology from the prosecutor for illegal criminal prosecution,” Vasin emphasized.