In Yeisk, a court fined a civil activist 30 thousand rubles for a comment critical of Putin

In the Krasnodar Territory, judge of the Yeisk City Court Yana Zheleznyak fined local civil activist Nikolai Makukhin 30 thousand rubles for a comment critical of Putin. This was reported by the publication “Voice of Kuban”, the information is also confirmed on the court’s website.

Makukhin was found guilty under the article of disrespect for authority (Part 3 of Article 20.1 of the Administrative Code). The reason for this was a comment from an activist on Facebook.

“[Published a comment] with the following content: “to the one who believes that Roldugin’s billions are Putin’s money, which he stole from the Russian people over 20 years,” thereby posting on the Internet information that offends human dignity and public morality, clearly disrespect for society, for the state of the Russian Federation,” Golos Kuban quotes from the court ruling.

At the court hearing, Makukhin refused to admit guilt and emphasized that Article 29 of the Constitution guarantees everyone in Russia the right to freedom of thought and speech.

The protocol against Makukhin was drawn up on August 21.

• At the end of July 2020, Nikolai Makukhinwas fined 30 thousand rubles for a comment critical of Putin. Then the reason for initiating a case under the same article (Part 3 of Article 20.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses) was a comment with the text “to the one who believes that Roldugin’s billions are Putin’s money, which he stole from the Russian people over 20 years.”

• In March 2019, Vladimir Putin signed a law on disrespect for power. For the first offense, this law provides for a fine of 30 to 100 thousand rubles.