The Chertanovsky District Court of Moscow sentenced former professor of the Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Gennady Deryagin to three years in prison due to posts condemning the war. This is reported by SOTA.
In 2023, 65-year-old Deryagin was sentenced to 10 years in a case of sexualized violence against a minor (clause “a”, part 3 of article 132 of the Criminal Code). By adding up his sentence, two years in prison were added to him under the article on discrediting the army (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code), Mediazona clarifies .
The pensioner was also prohibited from administering pages on the Internet for a year and a half. The court set the time limit required by the prosecutor's office.
The reason for initiating a case against Gennady Deryagin were posts on VKontakte. The first was dedicated to missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, and another was about a Russian aerial bomb that fell in Belgorod. The accusation was also based on a repost of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech, under which Deryagin allegedly wrote: “Why do they not like us so much and even bomb us?!”
In court, the pensioner clarified that the case was opened on the denunciation of a person who extorted money from him, offering to “come to an amicable agreement with him.” Deryagin did not name the informer.
He admitted partial guilt and stated that his opinion “contradicted the official opinion.”
“I admit it partly because I have a mental disorder due to a brain disease,” added Gennady Deryagin.
Deryagin’s relatives do not believe in his guilt in the case of sexualized violence and consider the case to be politically motivated. The pro-Kremlin publication Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article calling the former professor’s scientific work “an attempt to ‘decriminalize’ pedophilia.”
Gennady Deryagin is the founder of criminal sexology and a former professor at Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and SSMU.
- Since February 24, 2022—the first day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine—residents of Russian cities have been holding anti-war protests every day and talking about the tragedy online. Anti-war speeches and statements become grounds for criminal prosecution. At the moment, more than 1,050 people have become defendants in criminal cases initiated due to protest against the war with Ukraine. Read more about this in our infographic .
- Article 280.3 (Public actions aimed at discrediting the armed forces of the Russian Federation) was included in the Criminal Code in March 2022 - in this way the government responded to anti-war speeches and statements, as well as the dissemination of information about the war that does not come from official Russian sources. On March 14, 2023, the State Duma adopted amendments increasing the maximum penalty under this article, since then it has been seven years in prison.