Octogenarian Russian human rights activist to appeal fine for ‘incitement to terrorism’

A military court in the city of Khabarovsk, in Russia’s Far East, has found an 86-year-old human rights activist guilty of incitement to terrorism and fined him 500,000 rubles (€5,500), independent Telegram news channel Govorit NeMoskva reported on Friday.

“I have been found guilty of public incitement to terrorism! What nonsense!” Mark Kuperman told Govorit NeMoskva, “I am against all wars, except defensive wars, so I am very much against any so-called ‘special military operations’.”

He added that such “operations” violated the right to life, which he described as the most important human right of all. “I did not incite anyone to commit any violence whatsoever! We will appeal,” Kuperman said, noting that the court had also banned him from administering websites for two years, which he said he did not understand as he didn’t use social media.

Kuperman, a former mayor of the oil town of Okha on the island of Sakhalin in Russia’s Far East, was initially charged with “extremism” in April 2024, though this was later changed to the more serious charge of “incitement to terrorism”.

Before then, Kuperman’s home had been bugged by the Russian security services for 18 months. According to investigators, one of his own acquaintances even filed a denunciation against him.

The charges stemmed from a document titled A Plan for Western Involvement in Regime Change in Russia: Humanitarian Occupation, which the authorities claim was circulated by Kuperman, though the document was actually penned by another prominent human rights figure, Lev Ponomaryov.

While convictions for incitement to terrorism almost always end in custodial sentences, Kuperman’s state of health technically made imprisonment illegal, which may explain the relative leniency of his punishment.