Seven Years For An SMS: Activists Alarmed Over Southern Russia Treason Convictions

[TomSea]

Seven Years For An SMS: Activists Alarmed Over Southern Russia Treason Convictions


Oksana Sevastidi spent 14 months in pretrial detention, during which time prosecutors questioned her only twice. Her own defense attorney never visited her.

Oksana Sevastidi, a 46-year-old shopkeeper from the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, is serving a seven-year prison sentence for high treason.

Although she was convicted and sentenced in March, Sevastidi's case only became widely known this month, after her desperate relatives contacted the Memorial human rights organization for help appealing the court's ruling.

Even more alarmingly, human rights lawyers say, Sevastidi is just one of at least 10 people similarly charged and sentenced by a secret court in Russia's southern Krasnodar region.

Sevastidi was convicted of sending two SMS messages in the first half of 2008 that the Russian government argued contained secret information about military movements in the direction of the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia. Russia and Georgia fought a brief war over Abkhazia and a second Georgian region, South Ossetia, in August 2008, after which Moscow recognized both regions as independent.

Sevastidi still cannot quite believe what happened at her trial, which was held in the basement of the local Federal Security Service (FSB) branch under tight secrecy.

Read More At: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-seven-years-prison-treason-text-message/28159839.html

Typical.