Facing a criminal case over an anti-war post, hospice founder Lida Moniava says she’ll leave the Lighthouse Charity Foundation’s leadership but not Russia
Lida Moniava will step down as director of the Lighthouse Charity Foundation, which operates a children’s hospice, and leave its board, according to a post published by her friends on her Telegram channel.
“I will have to step down as director of the Lighthouse Charity Foundation and leave the board. But I believe my colleagues will be able to keep the hospice running without me,” Moniava’s friends wrote on her behalf. Moniava herself is barred from using the internet.
Moniava said the investigation into her case will continue for the next couple of months before the case goes to trial. For now, she said, there are still “a few months of life left to finish things up and try to put arrangements in place at the Lighthouse Charity Foundation so that the hospice can keep running without me.”
Moniava said (through her friends):
I’m getting a lot of advice to leave the country. I understand that everyone is worried about me and wants me to be okay. It’s very hard to upset everyone like this, but I’m still not going to leave Russia. I can’t really explain this except from a Christian perspective. I understand all the risks: I’ve been through a 6 a.m. search, shivered in a gloomy cell, spent time in handcuffs, done squats naked in front of officers of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service, and been bounced around on a bench in a prison van with a vomit bag in hand. Now I live with an ankle monitor. But it really matters to me to stay in Russia during this difficult time.
Lida Moniava was detained on September 2 on charges of spreading “fake news” about the Russian military. The criminal case was prompted by a post on her Telegram channel published in February 2023, on the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The post read: “For a year now, my country has been sending missiles, tanks, and soldiers to Ukraine. For a year now, innocent people have been dying because of it.”
After spending a night in a temporary detention facility, Moniava was brought to court, where a judge imposed restrictions on her activities while the case is pending. The court barred Moniava, a co-founder of the Lighthouse Charity Foundation, from going outside between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m., communicating with witnesses, and using the internet.
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