2024-09-18 02:06:27
Maria Ponomarenko, a 46-year-old journalist from Siberia who is serving a six-year sentence for speaking out against the war in Ukraine, has announced a hunger strike, her publication and her supporter said today.
Ponomarenko was detained less than two months after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 for accusing the Russian Air Force of bombing a theater in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Last February, a court in her hometown of Barnaul in Western Siberia found her guilty on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army, writes BTA.
According to the human rights organization and media outlet OVD-Info, more than 20,000 people across Russia have been arrested for their opposition to the war. While most of those detained are fined and released shortly after, independent journalists are often subject to more harsh treatment by judicial authorities.
Most independent media outlets, including online media RusNet, which publishes information only in Russian and has no significant audience abroad, continued their activities in exile. Four RusNet journalists, including Maria Ponomarensko, are behind bars.
Ponomarenko may face new charges on suspicions that she assaulted guards at the prison where she is being held, RusNet said.
Former Moscow city councilor Yulia Galyamina said Ponomarenko was locked up in a cell after prison officials falsified inspection reports against her, prompting her to go on hunger strike at a court hearing yesterday.
“Masha is in a very bad condition,” Galyamina told Reuters by phone from the hearing in Barnaul, using a diminutive of Ponomarenko.
“She cried a lot (in court) because of a feeling of powerlessness. He even wants to kill himself,” Galiamina said.
RusNet said Ponomarenko had gone on hunger strike, but declined to comment further to Reuters.
At a hearing last month, Ponomarenko said he would cut his veins to protest the conditions at the pre-trial detention center, RusNet said.
Last year, the newspaper “Kommersant” wrote that in detention Ponomarenko was diagnosed with “hysterical personality disorder” and cut her veins. The publication cited a statement from her lawyer that she suffered from claustrophobia and broke a window.
Galyamina herself, who has exchanged letters with Ponomarenko, received a two-year suspended sentence four years ago for organizing anti-Kremlin protests. She was later declared a “foreign agent” and no longer allowed to work in politics.