Russia Jails Ex-Editor of Youth Magazine DOXA 7 Years in Absentia for ‘Justifying Terrorism’

A military court sentenced a former editor at the independent youth news outlet DOXA to seven years in prison in absentia for “justifying terrorism on the internet,” the digital rights organization Network Freedoms said Monday.

Maria Menshikova was convicted over two posts she made on the Russian social network VKontakte in the summer of 2022. The court handed down three-and-a-half-year sentences for each post, totaling seven years.

The posts were said to have encouraged writing letters to three Russian men convicted of setting fire to military registration and enlistment offices, as well as three Belarusian men convicted of setting fire to a railway relay cabinet in the Belarusian city of Gomel.

Menshikova currently resides outside of Russia, where authorities designated DOXA as an “undesirable” organization earlier this year.

Russian courts have increasingly handed down prison sentences in absentia for critics of the Russian government and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In July, exiled journalist Mikhail Zygar was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in absentia, and in August, opposition figure Dmitry Gudkov, who also resides outside of Russia, was sentenced to eight years in absentia.