In the Irkutsk region, the court dismissed the case of “fake news” about coronavirus

On January 18, Judge of the Usolsky City Court of the Irkutsk Region, Denis Yegorov, dismissed an administrative case under the article on the dissemination of unreliable information under the guise of reliable information (part 9 of article 13.15 of the Code of Administrative Offenses) against a local resident Evgenia Nekrasova. This was reported by Interfax with reference to the press service of the court. The information is also confirmed on the website of the court.

Nekrasova, according to Interfax, at the beginning of April 2020, she heard in one of the pharmacies that the head physician of the Usolsk city hospital was allegedly diagnosed with coronavirus. To verify this information, she wrote to one of the chats in Viber.

The court, on appeal, dismissed the administrative case against Nekrasova, considering that there was no corpus delicti in her actions. In addition, the court also established procedural violations in the consideration of the case of a local resident in the court of first instance.

According to Interfax, in May 2020 the court of first instance fined Nekrasova 30,000 rubles. However, the fine was not upheld on appeal.

• Across Russia, the police massively drew up protocols, opened criminal cases and demanded that access to content about the coronavirus be restricted in connection with the operation of the law prohibiting the dissemination of “knowingly false information”. According to the Agora International Human Rights Group, by June 9, 2020, 170 administrative cases were opened in Russia in 53 regions and 42 criminal cases in 24 regions of the country.