Moscow's Tverskoy district court has arrested Russian politician Leonid Gozman for “publicly equating the actions of the USSR and Nazi Germany” in a 2013 LiveJournal post, reports Novaya Gazeta. Europe’s correspondent.
The judge ruled that Gozman suffering from cholelithiasis was not a reason for substituting an arrest with a fine, seeing as Gozman had been discharged from a hospital. With the new 15-days arrest, the 72-year-old politician will have to spend a month in a detention centre.
According to outlet Mediazona, the police report was filed because of a 2013 LJ post, in which Gozman had reflected on seeing no difference between the USSR’s SMERSH and NKVD divisions and SS and Gestapo.
Yesterday, 13 September, Gozman was detained upon his exit from a detention centre, in which he had spent 15 days over the same charges for a recent Facebook post. The Tverskoy district court arrested the politician on 30 August. In the post, he stated that “Hitler is absolute evil, but Stalin is even worse. The SS are criminals, but the NKVD [the Soviet police and secret police] are far worse, because they murdered their own. Hitler declared a war on mankind. The communists declared total war on their own people.”
There is another case opened against Gozman — for failing to notify the Russian official bodies of his second citizenship. On 25 July, Gozman was placed on Russia’s wanted list. He was detained in the Moscow metro on the same day and later released.
According to the Criminal Code of Russia, the punishment for failure to notify authorities of a second citizenship is either 400 hours’ community service, a 200,000-ruble (€3,300) fine, or a fine equal to his annual income. Gozman later stated that his wife had also been charged under the same article.
