Russia jails blogger for criticising Syria intervention

An international NGO that promotes press freedom worldwide slammed the Russian judiciary yesterday for jailing a blogger over criticisms he levelled against President Vladimir Putin’s decision to intervene in Syria.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on Russian authorities to release Aleksei Kungurov after he was convicted of “calling for terrorism” by a court in Tyumen, 2,500 kilometres east of Moscow.

Citing a news report, the CPJ said that Kungurov wrote a blog post titled “Who did Putin’s Falcons actually bomb?” in October 2015 that was critical of the Russian intervention in Syria on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad.

Kungurov followed this piece up with another blog post later that same month, providing his analysis for what he thought was happening in the region where his country was now embroiled on behalf of a regime recognised as having been responsible for the deaths of almost half a million Syrians.

Although the Russian blogger, hailing from Siberia, made his posts in 2015, it was not until March 2016 that his apartment was raided by police and he was placed under house arrest.

Kungurov has been detained since then, and was transferred to a Tyumen detention facility in June. Although his detention was extended by a court until 15 December, he was sentenced to two years in a penal colony yesterday.

According to the CPJ’s prison census, two journalists were jailed by Russian authorities for their work this month, excluding Kungurov.

Russia has not only punished those against the Kremlin’s Syria policies, but even those deemed to be too much in support. In October, Anton Nosik was fined $8,000 for calling on the Kremlin to “erase Syria from the face of the earth”.

Press freedoms and freedom of expression in Russia have frequently been criticised by international human rights groups, including Amnesty International who temporarily had their offices closed by Russian authorities in early November.