Dissident journalist Marina Ovsiannikova fled Russia for Europe
Marina Ovsiannikova, the Russian journalist under house arrest for denouncing the Russian offensive in Ukraine live on television, has fled Russia with her daughter, her lawyer has announced. « [Elle] left Russia with her daughter a few hours after leaving the apartment where she was under house arrest”say Dmitry Zakhvatov, specifying that mother and daughter are in Europe. “They are fine, they are waiting to be able to express themselves publicly, but for the moment it is not sure”, he added. Her lawyer said she was due for a hearing at 10 a.m. in Moscow but investigators were unable to determine her whereabouts.
Marina Ovsiannikova, 44, was placed under house arrest for two months in August following her participation in a demonstration in July outside the Kremlin, during which she held up a poster calling President Vladimir Putin a murderer and its fascist soldiers. She faces up to ten years in prison if found guilty of spreading information about the Russian military that differs from that of the government.
A few days after the outbreak of the offensive in Ukraine, she had interrupted the evening news of the major Russian channel Pervy Kanal, where she had worked as a journalist for nearly twenty years. She had waved a sign calling for an end to the fighting and the Russians to “don’t believe the propaganda”. For this gesture, she was briefly arrested and fined. She then left the country to work for the German media The world.
Accused of spreading false information about the Russian army, Marina Ovsiannikova wrote on October 5 in a message posted on Telegram messaginghave nothing to be ashamed of. “I consider myself totally innocent, and since our State refuses to respect its own laws, I refuse to comply with the measure of constraint which was imposed on me as of September 30, 2022 and I release myself from it”, she wrote. She believes she was persecuted “for telling the truth”.