The prosecution has requested three years in prison for a 61-year-old pensioner from Buryatia, Natalya Filonova, in the case of an attack on police officers after an anti-war rally in September 2022. This was reported by human rights activist Nadezhda Nizovkina.
According to her, there is a debate in the court on the Filonova case. She believes that when passing a sentence, the court will take into account mitigating circumstances – Natalya Filonova is 61 years old, she has high blood pressure, a pensioner is raising a foster child.
An aggravating circumstance, according to Nizovkina, is the commission of a crime during the period of partial mobilization.
The case against her was opened in September 2022, and on November 17 she was sent to a pre-trial detention center for violating the rules of house arrest, in protest she went on a hunger strike.
Natalya Filonova is a journalist who has covered protests in Russia. She alone brings up a 15-year-old adopted son with a disability, Vladimir Alalykin. In December last year, the guardianship authorities forcibly took away her son, and in March, the guardianship authorities sent him to an orphanage in the Barguzinsky district.
In February 2021, she was accused of repeatedly violating the rules for holding a rally and fined 250 thousand rubles, later this fine was canceled. However, Filonova was fined 500,000 rubles on charges of disobeying a police officer at the same rally. In April 2022, the activist was again fined 150,000 for participating in a rally in support of political prisoners.
In the same month, another incident happened to Filonova. The woman got on a city bus, saw the letter Z pasted at the entrance to the passenger compartment, which became a symbol of Russian aggression in Ukraine, and asked the driver to remove it. However, the driver called the police. In May, a court arrested her for five days on administrative charges of petty hooliganism and resisting the police, and she was also fined 1,000 rubles. In June, the court fined the activist 35,000 rubles for her next request to the bus driver to remove the sticker with the letter Z, but under the article about “discrediting” the Russian army.
