Sentence to Oleg Belousov confirmed

Oleg Belousov was found guilty under paragraph “d” of Part 2 of Art. 207.3 and part 2 of Art. 280 CC.

On September 4, 2023, the St. Petersburg City Court considered the appeal against the verdict of amateur search engine Oleg Belousov and left it unchanged. On March 29, 2023, the Moscow District Court found the St. Petersburg resident guilty under paragraph “d” of Part 2 of Art. 207.3 of the Criminal Code (dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of Russian armed forces based on political hatred) and Part 2 of Art. 280 of the Criminal Code (public calls for extremist activities) and imposed a sentence of five and a half years in a general regime colony with a four-year ban on publishing on the Internet.

During the debate, the prosecution asked that Belousov, despite the fact that he has a third group disability, be sentenced to nine and a half years in a general regime colony with a ban on administering websites and posting publications on the Internet for five years.

The criminal case against Belousov became known in June 2022 - initially he was accused only under paragraph “e” of Part 2 of Art. 207.3 CC. Then a search was carried out at his home, and later the court sent the St. Petersburg resident to a pre-trial detention center.

The reason for the criminal prosecution was Belousov’s comments in the St. Petersburg Diggers community on VKontakte, criticizing the actions of the Russian armed forces on the territory of Ukraine. Later, a charge under Part 2 of Art. 280 of the Criminal Code - because of three comments. In one of them, Belousov called Vladimir Putin a war criminal, in the second he stated his involvement in the murders of civilians in Ukraine, in the third, as part of a dispute with another social network user who accused Ukrainians of trying to “ban the Russian language,” he asked a rhetorical question about the need because of this, destroy the Russian-speaking cities of Ukraine. Law enforcement agencies and the court interpreted the last statement as a call for the destruction of Kharkov and Mariupol.

We consider the persecution of Belousov to be unlawful. When making a decision under Part 2 of Art. 280 of the Criminal Code, in connection with the first two episodes, the court relied on the provision of the law on countering extremist activities, according to which this includes publicly knowingly false accusations of government officials of extremism. We believe that such a provision has no place in the law: accusations of any type of crime brought by one person against another, regardless of the social status of both, can be considered in court as part of libel claims (the question is in which code does the article on slander, needs a separate discussion). Let us also recall that Art. 280 of the Criminal Code punishes calls for extremist activity. But Belousov’s statement about the president as a state criminal did not contain any appeals. As for the statement about Russian-speaking cities, here the court - contrary to the recommendations of the Supreme Court on the application of Art. 280 of the Criminal Code - clearly ignored its context, that is, the development of the dialogue between two opponents, necessary for assessing Belousov’s remark.

We consider the charges brought against Belousov under paragraph “e” of Part 2 of Art. 207.3 CC. Let us remind you that we oppose the use of the motive of political hatred in cases related to libel, including in cases of dissemination of false information about the Russian army. The manifestation of political or ideological hatred in itself is not criminalized, and we believe that this motive is appropriate to classify as aggravating circumstances only in articles about crimes that pose a serious public danger, namely, in articles about the use of violence. We believe that in cases of military “fakes,” the motive of political hatred is used unreasonably: it is obvious that people who publish information about military operations in Ukraine that differs from the official one most often ideologically and politically disagree with the course of the authorities, that is, in the majority of such cases we are talking about one of the forms of political criticism.

Sources

• // OVD-Info. 2023. September 4.
• A St. Petersburg resident with a disability was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison because of messages critical of the Russian military and Putin // OVD-News. 2023. March 29.
• The Moskovsky District Court of St. Petersburg announced the verdict against Oleg Belousov // United Press Service of the Courts of St. Petersburg. Telegram. 2023. March 29.