12 April 2024
Russia has charged a feminist activist from Kabarda–Balkaria with ‘justifying terrorism’ over comments she made on social media.
Russia’s Investigative Committee pressed charges against journalist and feminist activist Zalina Marshenkulova on 10 April.
Baza, a Telegram news channel, reported that Marshenkulova was charged after commenting on the murder of Vladlen Tatarsky, a Russian pro-war blogger who was assassinated in Saint Petersburg earlier this month in an explosion that injured more than 40 people.
Russia has since accused Ukraine of orchestrating the attack, while Ukraine blamed it on domestic terrorism in Russia
On 3 April, Marshenkulova criticised Tatarsky and said that he ‘reaped what he sowed’.
‘I don’t think there is a need to hypocritically sympathise with the death of a cannibal, an aggressor, a former robber, who supported the murders in Ukraine, which did nothing to anyone’, she wrote on Telegram.
Marshenkulova, who has been outside Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, was charged in absentia.
On Thursday, she said that she was ‘not surprised’, adding that the charges against her were ‘surreal and chaotic’.
‘The morning doesn’t start with coffee, but with a criminal case for no reason. I’m in touch with the lawyers; they haven’t seen the case yet’, she wrote on Telegram.
‘Of course, I’m not surprised, although we must not stop being surprised that they are now putting in order all those who disagree with the war under the “justification of terrorism”.’
