Police have searched the home of former employee of Russia’s Channel One Marina Ovsyannikova, who held up a “No to war” sign during a live broadcast of the evening news back in March, she told OVD-Info, a Russian human rights group that monitors political arrests.
“The police refused to wait for an attorney and barged into the house. But they left me the investigator’s phone number. It seems that I will have to look for Marina at the police station,” her attorney Dmitry Zakhvatov said.
According to him, the police filed criminal charges against Ovsyannikova for spreading “fake news” about the Russian army.
After her March display of protest, Ovsyannikova resigned from Channel One. She was charged with organising an unsanctioned protest and issued a 30,000-ruble (€485) fine. Ovsyannikova then left the country. It was reported in July that the woman had come back to Moscow.
In July, the court fined the reporter to the tune of 50,000 (€810) rubles over her speech outside the court during a hearing on Russian politician Ilya Yashin’s measure of restraint. Ovsyannikova called the war “the most horrible crime of the 21st century”.
Yesterday, a court slapped a 40,000-ruble (€650) fine on Ovsyannikova for “discrediting” the Russian army in a Facebook post.
