Зона солидарности

​​Why was Igor Paskar sentenced to eight-and-a-half years?

We have written a few times about the facts of Igor Paskar’s case. He was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years’ imprisonment for throwing a firebomb at a Federal Security Services (FSB) office. You can see a video of his action. But how did the court treat this action? Why did it define it as a terrorist act?

In their decision to convict Igor Paskar, at the Southern District military court on 31 May this year, the three judges Kirill Krivtsov, Alexey Magamadov and Vladimir Tsybulnik described his motives as follows:

“Being discontented with the decisions and actions of organs of state power of the Russian Federation taken in relation to the conduct of the special military operation, from 24 February <...>, and wishing, in this regard, to express his negative attitude to the organs of state power of the Russian Federation, that is, motivated by political hostility”.

The judges actually painted a picture of a person who does not support Russian military aggression in Ukraine. No more, no less. But then they defined this as “political hostility”. And this “political hostility” is an aggravating circumstance, a more serious part of the decision.

The decision then describes how, on Russia Day (a national holiday), 12 June 2022, Paskar maliciously burned a banner “with a patriotic image in support of the special military operation, and the words ‘Z – We don’t abandon our own’”.

But “finding that this criminal action did not get sufficient attention from society”, Paskar did not stop there, but decided in the judges’ words “to commit a more high-impact crime, that is, a terrorist act”.

It was the symbolic fire-setting on the porch of the FSB offices at Krasnodar that the judges named a terrorist act. In their view, this small fire-show on the stone steps terrified the population and presented danger to life and limb — although from the video recording it is clear that no-one was fleeing in terror, and obvious to anyone with common sense that Paskar’s action presented absolutely no threat to anyone. No expert evidence was sought on this matter: the court simply took the word of the investigating officers.

The court further asserted that the fire was set with the aim of putting pressure on organs of state to stop the “special military operation”, as the authorities in Russia call the all-out war against Ukraine. But Igor never made any such demand, and explained that by his actions he had wanted only to draw attention to the war started by the Kremlin, and to express support for Ukrainian men and women resisting it.

In the light of the arguments we have made above, we do not consider Igor Paskar’s actions to have been terroristic. We do not think the formulation about “political hostility” is appropriate, either. For these reasons we consider the whole guilty verdict to be unlawful, baseless, and politically motivated. We demand the immediate release of Igor Paskar, and will especially pursue this demand if there is change in the political situation in the Russian Federation.

We also hope that Memorial, Amnesty International and other organisations will recognise Igor Paskar as a political prisoner.

We are now collecting funds to pay Igor Paskar’s lawyer and for travel expenses incurred in connection with the appeal against his conviction. You can send donations by PayPal or send cryptocurrency.

🪙 PayPal: [email protected] (marked "for Paskar", please indicate the currency in euro if possible)

🥷 Cryptocurrency (be sure to email us at [email protected] if you are transferring cryptocurrency to support Igor Paskar):

Monero: 4B1tm6boA5ST6hLdfnPRG2Np9XMHCTiyhE6QaFo46QXp6tZ7Y6nJjE43xBBTwHM84bWwexR8nS4KH36JHujjc1kC8j2Mx5e

Bitcoin: bc1qn404lrshp3q9gd7852d7w85sa09aq0ch28s3v4

Ethereum: 0x7CE361fA7dAb77D028eaEF7Bbe2943FDF0655D3E

USDT (TRC20):
TRcCUHKSMY7iLJPvbDxLc6ZnvAud72jTgj

Other altcoins:
https://nowpayments.io/donation/solidarityzone

#english #fundraising

www.group-telegram.com/pl/solidarity_zone.com/1227

1.1K viewsAug 20, 2023 at 16:28

​​Why was Igor Paskar sentenced to eight-and-a-half years?

We have written a few times about the facts of Igor Paskar’s case. He was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years’ imprisonment for throwing a firebomb at a Federal Security Services (FSB) office. You can see a video of his action. But how did the court treat this action? Why did it define it as a terrorist act?

In their decision to convict Igor Paskar, at the Southern District military court on 31 May this year, the three judges Kirill Krivtsov, Alexey Magamadov and Vladimir Tsybulnik described his motives as follows:

“Being discontented with the decisions and actions of organs of state power of the Russian Federation taken in relation to the conduct of the special military operation, from 24 February <...>, and wishing, in this regard, to express his negative attitude to the organs of state power of the Russian Federation, that is, motivated by political hostility”.

The judges actually painted a picture of a person who does not support Russian military aggression in Ukraine. No more, no less. But then they defined this as “political hostility”. And this “political hostility” is an aggravating circumstance, a more serious part of the decision.

The decision then describes how, on Russia Day (a national holiday), 12 June 2022, Paskar maliciously burned a banner “with a patriotic image in support of the special military operation, and the words ‘Z – We don’t abandon our own’”.

But “finding that this criminal action did not get sufficient attention from society”, Paskar did not stop there, but decided in the judges’ words “to commit a more high-impact crime, that is, a terrorist act”.

It was the symbolic fire-setting on the porch of the FSB offices at Krasnodar that the judges named a terrorist act. In their view, this small fire-show on the stone steps terrified the population and presented danger to life and limb — although from the video recording it is clear that no-one was fleeing in terror, and obvious to anyone with common sense that Paskar’s action presented absolutely no threat to anyone. No expert evidence was sought on this matter: the court simply took the word of the investigating officers.

The court further asserted that the fire was set with the aim of putting pressure on organs of state to stop the “special military operation”, as the authorities in Russia call the all-out war against Ukraine. But Igor never made any such demand, and explained that by his actions he had wanted only to draw attention to the war started by the Kremlin, and to express support for Ukrainian men and women resisting it.

In the light of the arguments we have made above, we do not consider Igor Paskar’s actions to have been terroristic. We do not think the formulation about “political hostility” is appropriate, either. For these reasons we consider the whole guilty verdict to be unlawful, baseless, and politically motivated. We demand the immediate release of Igor Paskar, and will especially pursue this demand if there is change in the political situation in the Russian Federation.

We also hope that Memorial, Amnesty International and other organisations will recognise Igor Paskar as a political prisoner.

We are now collecting funds to pay Igor Paskar’s lawyer and for travel expenses incurred in connection with the appeal against his conviction. You can send donations by PayPal or send cryptocurrency.

🪙 PayPal: [email protected] (marked "for Paskar", please indicate the currency in euro if possible)

🥷 Cryptocurrency (be sure to email us at [email protected] if you are transferring cryptocurrency to support Igor Paskar):

Monero: 4B1tm6boA5ST6hLdfnPRG2Np9XMHCTiyhE6QaFo46QXp6tZ7Y6nJjE43xBBTwHM84bWwexR8nS4KH36JHujjc1kC8j2Mx5e

Bitcoin: bc1qn404lrshp3q9gd7852d7w85sa09aq0ch28s3v4

Ethereum: 0x7CE361fA7dAb77D028eaEF7Bbe2943FDF0655D3E

USDT (TRC20):
TRcCUHKSMY7iLJPvbDxLc6ZnvAud72jTgj

Other altcoins:
https://nowpayments.io/donation/solidarityzone

#english #fundraising

BY Зона солидарности