To 6 years in a penal colony, the Leninsky District Court of Barnaul sentenced Maria Ponomarenko, a journalist for RusNews, who was arrested in April 2022 in a case of spreading fakes about the Russian army. The reason for the trial was the post of a journalist on Instagram (belongs to Meta, which is banned in Russia as an extremist) about the shelling of a drama theater in Mariupol.
According to Maria Ponomarenko’s lawyer Dmitry Shitov, the court also banned the journalist from engaging in journalistic activities for 5 years. The state prosecution asked for 9 years in a general regime colony for Maria Ponomarenko.
The lawyer explained that the police could not find out from which IP address the post was published, because of which the journalist was sentenced to 6 years in prison. Law enforcement officials explained this by saying that Instagram is a “hostile organization” that does not respond to requests from the Russian police.
In May, Maria Ponomarenko was transferred to the Barnaul pre-trial detention center – there she was diagnosed with a hysterical personality disorder. The journalist’s lawyer reported that in the cell of his client, who suffers from claustrophobia, the only window was covered with gray tape. In September, the journalist broke it, for which she was sent to a punishment cell.
Then it became known that Maria Ponomarenko opened her veins. Subsequently, the court refused to place her under house arrest. She left behind two minor daughters.