Putin defended an unprecedented crackdown on dissenting voices in Russia (File)
Moscow:
President Vladimir Putin on Saturday defended an unprecedented crackdown on dissenting voices in Russia at a time of “armed battle” with Ukraine, urging everybody to comply with “sure guidelines.”
“It is the yr 2023, and Russia is engaged in an armed battle with a neighbour. And I feel that there ought to be a sure perspective in direction of individuals who hurt us contained in the nation,” Putin instructed reporters in Saint Petersburg.
“We should needless to say to ensure that us to realize success, together with in a battle zone, everybody must comply with sure guidelines,” Putin added.
The Russian president was responding to a query from a reporter who requested him to touch upon the latest jailing of a theatre director and a sociologist.
“The folks had been arrested for the phrases they stated or wrote. Is that this regular?” Andrei Kolesnikov, a veteran reporter for Kommersant day by day, requested Putin.
This week Russian authorities detained distinguished sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky, 64, and accused him of calling for terrorism on-line.
In Could, a Moscow court docket ordered the arrest of theatre director Yevgeniya Berkovich, 38, on costs of “justifying terrorism” over an award-winning play about Russian ladies recruited on-line to marry radical Islamists in Syria.
Putin stated he didn’t know who Kagarlitsky and Berkovich had been.
“I hear these names for the primary time and don’t actually perceive what they did or what was finished to them,” Putin stated. “I am simply telling you about my total perspective in direction of the issue.”
Criticism of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine has been outlawed and most distinguished members of the liberal opposition are both in jail or in exile.
Final week, authorities detained former separatist commander and nationalist blogger Igor Girkin on accusations of “extremism” after he criticised Putin.
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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