A Russian man who was investigated by police after his daughter drew an anti-war image in school was sentenced on Tuesday to 2 years in a penal colony after being convicted of discrediting the armed forces, the OVD-Information rights group mentioned.
Alexei Moskalyov has been separated from his daughter Masha since he was positioned below home arrest initially of this month and she or he was moved to a youngsters’s house of their hometown of Yefremov, south of Moscow.
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The case has provoked an outcry amongst Russian human rights activists and sparked an internet marketing campaign to reunite father and daughter.
Moskalyov was convicted over feedback he himself had posted on-line in regards to the battle in Ukraine. However the investigation began after Masha, 12, drew an image final April displaying Russian missiles raining down on a Ukrainian mom and baby, prompting the pinnacle of faculty to name the police.
Police started analyzing Moskalyov’s social media exercise and he was initially fined 35,000 roubles ($460) for feedback important of the Russian military. In December, investigators opened one other case towards him on suspicion of discrediting the armed forces, this time based mostly on a social media submit in June.
The banned Russian human rights group Memorial mentioned it thought-about Moskalyov to be a political prisoner.
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A lawyer for the household visited Masha on Tuesday in a youngsters’s house and got here away with drawings she had made for him. He was additionally allowed to {photograph} a letter she had written him that learn “Dad, you’re my hero”, in keeping with a video posted by the unbiased information outlet SOTAvision.
Shortly after invading Ukraine final 12 months, Russia handed legal guidelines towards discrediting the armed forces or knowingly spreading false details about them, with a most sentence of 15 years in jail.