A Russian journalist who made world headlines when she protested against the war in Ukraine on live television has been placed under house arrest for two months.
Marina Ovsyannikova interrupted a bulletin telling viewers not to believe state propaganda and shouted ‘stop the war’ on a station watched by millions in March.
She has continued to speak out against the invasion despite the threat of draconian prison sentences and fines.
After a raid on her home, she was hauled in front of a judge this morning who warned her she faces up to 10 years in prison and must stay at home under police guard pending an investigation.
The new charge relates to a street protest during which she held up a sign near the Kremlin to protest over the deaths of children in Ukraine.
Ms Ovsyannikova was pictured with bloodied toy dolls at her feet and holding a placard reading ‘Putin is a killer, his soldiers are fascists’.
Undeterred, she continued to rage against the onslaught in court, holding up a poster which read ‘let the murdered children come to you in your dreams at night’.
Harsh new laws were brought in shortly after the February invasion began in order to punish dissent, including banning use of the word ‘war’ to describe the situation.
Speaking after the hearing, her lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov said: ‘Marina became a hostage of her own conscience and a hostage of her love for her children, you see.
‘She cannot be abroad because her children are here, and she cannot stay silent here because she’s a prisoner of her conscience.
‘As a mother, she can’t stay silent. She sees what’s going on and it’s making her speak out.’
Ms Ovsyannikova escaped a prison sentence for her infamous TV protest, which was carried out on a station she had worked for as an editor.
She has been fined two more times in recent weeks for criticising the military in a Facebook post and with comments she made at a court where an opposition activist also accused of spreading false information about the military was remanded into custody.
According to Net Freedoms, a legal aid group focusing on free speech cases, as of Wednesday there were 79 criminal cases on charges of spreading false information about the military and up to 4,000 administrative cases on charges of disparaging the armed forces.
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