A resident of Stavropol received a sentence for comments on social media

The military court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced a resident of Stavropol to a term in a strict regime colony, recognizing his comments on social media as justification for terrorism.

The accused is 28 years old. The man was charged under the article on justification or propaganda of terrorism via the internet (part 2 of article 205 of the Criminal Code of Russia), which provides for a sentence of five to seven years in prison.

According to the prosecution's version, the young man, "holding radical-extremist views," left comments in June 2024 under various publications on one of the social networks. The investigation concluded that the content of these comments "justifies violent terrorist actions," the official Telegram channel of the regional Investigative Committee reported on October 1.

The Prosecutor's Office of Stavropol noted that the accused left comments "on the channel he administered." Neither agency specifies the particular platform nor discloses the content of the comments. It is also not clarified what the accused's "radical-extremist views" consisted of, nor whether he admitted his guilt.

The case was considered by the Southern District Military Court. The man was sentenced to five years and six months in a strict regime colony with a two-year ban on administering websites and internet resources.

The sentence has not yet entered into legal force, the prosecutor's office noted. The name of the defendant has not been disclosed, and a significant portion of cases under the article on justification of terrorism in the open registry of the Southern District Military Court has been anonymized.

Courts in southern Russia regularly sentence local residents to real terms in a colony for publications on social networks under the article on justification of terrorism via the internet. It is not possible to establish the actual number of such sentences, as not all cases under this article make it into public court registries.

"Caucasian Knot" also reported that the military court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Alexander Borovkov from Novorossiysk to a term in a colony, finding justification for terrorism in his comment about the case of Darya Trepova.