Russian courts leave one-third of political convicts in August unnamed, over half of politically motivated sentences hushed up

As The Insider and Kirill Parubets’ data analysis center estimate, this past August Russian courts issued 219 verdicts and convicted 236 individuals on political grounds. In 84 cases (36%), the courts concealed the defendants’ names, and in 129 cases (55%), they did not provide information about the sentences imposed.

In publicly known cases, the courts concealed the names of:

• Four people sentenced to actual prison terms for “treason”
• An 18-year-old defendant in a sabotage case, sentenced to six years in prison
• A 70-year-old woman from the Perm Krai, sentenced to 250 hours of community service for donations to the Vozrozhdenie (“Renaissance”) spiritual center
• A resident of Murom, sentenced to seven years in a penal colony for spreading “fake news” about the Russian army and “justifying terrorism”
• Another defendant, who was sentenced to compulsory psychiatric treatment in the same case of “fake news” about the Russian army and “justifying terrorism.”

In the remaining 76 cases, the available data contains neither the names of the convicted nor the sentences imposed.

Throughout August, the courts concealed information about the sentences of 129 people convicted in politically motivated cases. The majority (57 defendants) were convicted of “justifying terrorism.” In 14 more cases, verdicts were issued on charges of financing an extremist organization, a statute often used to prosecute those who have made donations to the late Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation. Eleven people, whose sentencing information was hidden, were convicted of “treason.”

The Insider counted at least 88 people who were sentenced to actual prison terms in politically motivated cases in August. However, given that sentencing information for another 129 people is unknown, the number of those convicted to real terms for political reasons could be significantly higher.

In some cases, when courts conceal information about defendants, it can be found in press releases from the prosecutor’s office or the Investigative Committee, as well as in state media. But low-profile cases hardly ever receive media coverage or mentions in press releases. Since 2022, the opportunities for independent journalists to directly cover court proceedings have also been greatly reduced, primarily due to media outlets being designated as “foreign agents” or “undesirable organizations” (The Insider belongs to the latter category).

Similarly, in the absence of press releases and media coverage, information about specific sentences is hard to come by. According to the law “On Ensuring Access to Information on the Activities of Courts in the Russian Federation,” courts are required to publish their verdicts, albeit with personal data redacted. However, in practice, this is rarely done in political cases, making it difficult to assess the validity and fairness of the sentences.

The latter circumstance also hampers the assessment of politically motivated convictions on charges that are used both for political persecution and for actual terrorism. The Insider provides a highly conservative estimate of politically motivated convictions based on open data and the criteria for assessing political motivation in prosecutions used by the human rights project “Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial.”