The 65-year-old Tomsk human rights activist was sentenced to a million rubles of a fine for “military fakes”. She asked to set a deadline, since there is no way to take installments for payment

The Seversky City Court of the Tomsk Region appointed a 65-year-old human rights activist Marina Novikova a fine of a million rubles under an article on fakes about the army (part 1 of article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The defense will appeal the verdict after receiving the motivation part, her husband Alexander Gavrik told “important stories”.

According to him, Novikova does not plan to declare a fee. “Marina categorically against sponsoring her or local thieves (where the fine will be directed or where the fine will be stuck). We will worry troubles as we receive, I will inform you if the sentence isnding, and I will get my wife to accept donations, ”he said.

He added that his wife came to court with a “prison” backpack, half of which was occupied by medicines, “but who cares, like her life and health - an absolutely innocent person.” The judge expelled him after the debate and did not let him in the verdict: if they had taken into custody, they "would not even say goodbye to say goodbye."

The reason for initiating the case was Novikova’s anti-war posts, which she placed in her telegram channel “Pravda City of Seversk” for 170 subscribers (now more than 450) in the first half of March. In particular, messages about the shelling of Ukrainian cities in Russia and an attempt to capture Energodar. The woman herself informed the court that all her posts are confirmed by publicly accessible certificates and information that her Ukrainian friends passed on to her.

The case against Novikova was opened on March 15, 2022: she became one of the first accused under the article on Fakes - it was introduced on March 4, 11 days before the initiation of the case. The next day, Novikova was a search, and then she was chosen a preventive measure in the form of a ban on certain actions. The lawyer was forbidden to leave Seversk and use the Internet, and on the phone was allowed to communicate only with current clients. In March 2023, she was threatened with imprisonment in a pre-trial detention center because of a missed meeting. Since April, Novikova has been under house arrest. During the detention, the investigator brought the pensioner to a heart attack, her husband reported.

During the last word, Novikov asked the court to appoint a term, not a fine. “Even for the minimum amount of the fine, determined in the article incriminated to me and with an installment plan for five years, I have nowhere to take money. I provided the court with an ophthalmologist’s inspection of December 2022 of my only one who sees my eyes with the diagnosis of “optic atrophy” and attached a digging of an article from the Internet with a forecast with this disease of complete blindness, which could occur on any day. So, even if I restore the practice of a human rights activist, destroyed during criminal prosecution, it is not a fact that I can earn enough to pay a fine assigned even on the lower bar. The husband also has a sick heart and he works to the best of his strength after we burned a workshop in which he almost burned down in October 2012. So with the debts that we already have that are growing monthly, income in my family, in which there are only two left, there is nowhere to take it, ”the lawyer explained in court.

“I am sure that each of the involved in my case found a solid set of excuses for himself and from his point of view of convincing arguments, but I know for sure one thing: everyone perfectly understood and understand that I haven’t done anything criminal and even reprehensible from the point of view of human morality and the principles of the hostel, and they drink blood from me in the literal and figurative sense from March 16, 2022 by order and order, but not according to the laws of Russia, but not according to the laws of Russia, but not according to the laws of Russia. Only because, which had never given solemn oaths and oath, I just tried to always honestly and conscientiously fulfill my duties of a human rights activist, helped to do just 30 years in Seversk, obeying only the law, and remains impartial and fair, as my civic duty and my conscience were ordered, and did not change her own and with the beginning of her. <...>

I have not betrayed and will not betray my family of Novikov, my bold and principled grandmother, Novikov Nadezhda Alexandrovna, masters of the onset of a weaving factory, put in prison in prison for criticizing the city of Strunino, Vladimir Region. The thieves and their servants did not care that she was pregnant, as now do not care about all my deadly sores. But the whole city stood up for her, and she was released four months later. <...>

I have not betrayed and will not betray the memory of my father, a unique teacher, who until my day was not tired of writing to all instances in order to save Soviet education destroyed before his eyes, the best in the world.

I did not betray my country and my fellow citizens, who are very sick, I did not hide for the employment of the human rights activist and did not fly abroad, because I do not believe that this is a deadly incurable ailment. I did not turn away disgusting, as many of my compatriots did, neither from the country, nor from the fellow citizens, although their skin and infantility cause my rejection. My pain shows in every video message to them for the sake of all of us, the inhabitants of Russia. Having ears and heart will certainly hear.

I did everything that my fellow citizens could hear me and made the right choice, taking the side of good and light. I did everything I could, so that my granddaughter was not ashamed of her grandmother. Perhaps my smart girl, having sorted it out in everything on her own, will be proud of her grandmother, as I am proud of her own, ”she said before the sentence.

Article 207.3 (“Public distribution of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”) included in the Criminal Code in March 2022 - in this way, the authorities responded to anti -war speeches and statements, as well as the spread of information about the war not emanating from official Russian sources. The maximum punishment under the article is 15 years in prison.

According to the OVD-Info, the defendants in criminal cases initiated due to the protest against the war with Ukraine became more than 500 people. From the first day of a full -scale invasion, residents of Russian cities go to anti -war shares daily and talk about tragedy on the network, a human rights project notes.