A Russian court sentenced journalist Olga Komleva to 12 years in prison on Tuesday for her work with the Anti-Corruption Foundation and the dissemination of false information about the Russian military’s actions.
Judge Rafis Nabiyev of the Kirovsky District Court of Ufa, Republic of Bashkortostan, sentenced Komleva under Article 282.1, part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which criminalizes participation in an “extremist” organization, for associating with the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FKB). The Moscow City Court deemed the FKB an “extremist” organization in 2021. Additionally, the Court found Komleva guilty of disseminating “fakes” about the actions of the Russian armed forces under Article 207.3, part 2.
Although Komleva has been under arrest since March 2024, the precise details of her case are unknown, as her trial was held behind closed doors. Previous hearings in the case were also closed to the public. The prosecutor’s office had requested a 13-year sentence for Komleva.
Komleva, a reporter and activist from the city of Ufa, volunteered for the Anti-Corruption Foundation at the Ufa regional branch for several years. She was detained and fined on multiple occasions for her support of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny during the 2021 rallies, following his imprisonment. She was fined 5.6 million rubles (approximately $68,335) following a lawsuit filed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Russian National Guard.
Founded by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2011, the FKB published investigations uncovering alleged corruption schemes and alerting regulatory authorities and the public. An outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin, Navalny, recovering in Germany after surviving a poisoning attempt, was arrested at the airport upon his arrival in Moscow, sparking mass protests across Russia in 2021. Navalny’s death in prison in February 2024 prompted tributes across Russia and globally. Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard stated, “The Russian state could not break Aleksei Navalny with unjust imprisonment, torture, and repeated isolation.”
A 2024 UN report on the “Situation of human rights in the Russian Federation” noted that the Russian authorities’ violent crackdown on peaceful anti-war protests in 2022 resulted in fewer protests in the following years. The report noted “at least 1,372 human rights defenders, journalists, and anti-war critics have been detained on politically motivated charges” in a pattern of “increasing censorship, a crackdown on freedom of expression and political dissent.” Olga Komleva was named among the journalists “detained under spurious ‘extremism and terrorism’ charges.”
Organizations such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Coalition For Women in Journalism, and the International Federation of Journalists, in 2024, demanded the release of Olga Komleva and another journalist, Antonia Favorskaya, for their support of Navalny, condemning Russian authorities’ treatment of the journalists and criticizing the lack of transparency surrounding their cases.
