Presidential Council on Human Rights: REN TV stories about Ildar Dadin were propaganda
The Board specializing on complaints against the press of Russia’s Presidential Council on Human Rights has called television channel REN TV’s coverage of activist Ildar Dadin propaganda.
Experts have established that the reports grossly violated basic principles of journalistic ethics – those of impartially and accuracy. The coverage was found to bear the aim of discrediting Dadin and his wife Anastasia Zotova.
The Board also found in that REN TV’s stories violated Russia’s Civil Code by revealing private information from Zotova’s social networking accounts on television.
The Board assessed five total news packages titled: “William Browder helped to publicize ‘political prisoner’ ldar Dadin,” “Dadin’s wife’s lover: ‘She wanted to join United Russia’,” “Video: Dadin fought with cellmate who demanding intimate [contact] in Karelian colony,” “Hidden agenda found in story of political prisoner Dadin, ” and “Political trace found in Dadin case. But not the one you think.”
A complaint was filed against REN TV by the coordinator of Open Russia’s human rights project Maria Baronova.
In December 2015, opposition activist Ildar Dadin was sentenced to three years prison. He was the first person in Russia to be convicted under Article 212.1 of the Criminal Code on repeatedly violating the rules of organizing street events, in Dadin’s case – protests. In March 2016, the sentence was reduced from three years to two and a half.
On November 1, 2016, Meduza published a letter in which Dadin spoke about enduring torture at the hands of prison employees at Karelian penal colony number 7. Two days later, Dadin was visited by Russia’s Human Right Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova, who offered to transfer him to another colony.
Russia’s Federal Penetentiary Service and the Karelian branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee did not find any evidence of torture in the prison and called Dadin “a very talented imitator.”
On December 5, for reasons of “personal security”, the prisoner was transferred to another location. His whereabouts were not known for more than a month. On January 8, his family finally learned that he had been transferred to penal colony number 5 in the Altai.
On February 10, 2017, Russia’s Constitutional Court ruled that Dadin’s sentence should be reviewed by the country’s Supreme Court. The former decided that Dadin’s sentence for repeatedly holding one-man protests in violation of protest rules should be reconsidered due to the fact that, at the time of Dadin’s criminal proceedings, the law on his violation had not yet come into force.
On February 22, the Supreme Court overturned Dadin’s verdict. His release was petitioned for not only by his defense team, but also by Russia’s Prosecutor General’s, which requested that the case be closed and the prisoner released, as Dadin’s actions did not constitute a crime. Dadin’s lawyer Alexei Liptser told Meduza that, according a Supreme Court employee, a certified copy of the decision will be sent to the colony. “They will most likely have it tomorrow, and tomorrow or the next day he would be released,” Liptser said.