The Investigative Department of the FSB Directorate for the Chelyabinsk Region opened a criminal case on “justification of terrorism on the Internet” (Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code) against a janitor from the city of Satka, Gulnara Bakhareva. As Bakhareva told OVD-Info, the reason for the criminal case was a comment that she published on 10 October 2023, on the Telegram channel “You are not alone 74” under a post about the birthday of Alexei Nuriyev. Bakhareva wrote: “My fellow countrymen. I am proud.” On 2 October 2024, she said, FSB officers from Chelyabinsk came to her and confiscated her phone. FSB officers explained that a linguistic examination classified one word from this comment — “I am proud” — as a justification for terrorism.
According to the investigation, Bakhareva said that with her comment she “recognized the ideology and practice of terrorism as correct, in need of support and imitation, presenting the implementation of terrorist activity as acceptable.” “I don’t know, I’ll probably end up in the Guinness Book of Records soon, because I’ve never heard of a criminal case being opened against a person because of one word,” she said. OVD-Info clarifies that this is already Bakhareva’s second criminal case for “justifying terrorism.”
In November 2023, the Central District Military Court fined her 400,000 rubles for comments on social media in which she called the Crimean Bridge a “legitimate military target” and also wrote that “the Ostankino TV tower should be blown up.” In addition, at the beginning of 2024, a report was drawn up against Bakhareva under the article on “discrediting the Russian army” for a TikTok video with the words: “Your fascist ‘Russian world’ is bombing the cities of Ukraine.”
Meduza
