Anna Bilega

Affiliated media: Journalist

Incident date: October 31, 2023

Attack type:

• Court trial

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Mediazona

Location: Russia, Sakhalin Oblast, Lesogorskoye village

Additional information:

The Uglegorsk City Court of Sakhalin gave Anna Bilega two years of suspended sentence in the case of repeated «discrediting» of the army (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The court took into account that on October 6 the journalist from the Lesogorskoye village had already been given two years of suspended sentence in a similar case for «public actions on WhatsApp» that «discredited» the Russian military. Since the punishment imposed had an impact on the «correction of the defendant», Bilega was not given a real sentence and retained her previous suspended sentence. In addition to the suspended sentence, she was given two years of probation and banned from administering websites and social media pages for the same period.