Kalmyk Court sentences social network user from Volgograd Region for extremism

The Elista City Court has found Andrei Ovchinnikov, a resident of the Volgograd Region, guilty of inciting ethnic enmity and hatred by means of the Internet and sentenced him to 200 hours of compulsory labour.

The Court has revealed that in October 2012, during his stay in Elista, the 23-year-old young man posted on his brother's "VKontakte" personal page an image with text containing signs of inciting hatred against representatives of the peoples of the Caucasus, Transcaucasia, and Central Asia.

Besides, in 2013 and 2014, while living in the city of Novoanninsk of the Volgograd Region, Andrei Ovchinnikov again posted similar images on a social network in the Internet.

The Elista City Court has found Andrei Ovchinnikov guilty of actions aimed at inciting hatred and enmity and humiliation of a group of persons on the grounds of nationality, language and origin. The young man has been sentenced under Part 1 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and the Court has announced the punishment in the form of 200 hours of compulsory labour.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.