Moscow court orders house arrest for Ivan Golunov; investigators asked for two months in jail

Moscow’s Nikulinsky District Court has ordered Meduza correspondent Ivan Golunov to remain under house arrest for two months. The court also prohibited the journalist from using communication technologies or communicating with other defendants in his case. Investigators and prosecutors had petitioned for Golunov to remain in a pretrial detention center for two months. Golunov’s attorneys requested house arrest.

In response to the decision, crowds waiting outside the courthouse erupted into cheers. Meanwhile, human rights advocates emphasized that the hardest parts of the case are yet to come. “We will have to prove Ivan’s innocence, and we can only do that by proving the guilt of the operatives who searched him,” wrote Agora leader Pavel Chikov. Other commentators pointed to the public’s joyful reaction to Golunov’s house arrest order as a sign of the current state of the Russian criminal justice system.