By Lucy Papachristou
LONDON (Reuters) – A bunch of Russian docs has appealed to President Vladimir Putin over the “shameful” jailing of a Moscow paediatrician for feedback she was alleged to have made in regards to the warfare in Ukraine.
Nadezhda Buyanova, 68, was sentenced to 5-1/2 years in a penal colony final week after the mom of one in every of her sufferers publicly denounced her.
A dozen medical employees appeared in a video compilation revealed on the web site of Echo, a Russian unbiased radio station working in exile, to induce Putin to free her. It was not clear if any had been talking from inside Russia.
Talking in flip, they described the decision as “blatant lawlessness and cruelty” and stated it was disproportionate even to the “far-fetched charges” introduced in opposition to Buyanova.
“What danger to society is a person who has dedicated her life to saving the lives of our children?” one in every of them stated.
“We demand an immediate end to this shameful business and the freeing of Nadezhda Fyodorovna Buyanova,” stated one other, utilizing the physician’s full identify.
The Kremlin has declined to touch upon Buyanova’s case or on the rising pattern of Russians informing on fellow residents for his or her views on the warfare and different alleged political statements.
Critics say the observe helps authorities root out suspected “internal enemies”, in an echo of the Soviet period. Russian rights group OVD-Information has recorded 21 such felony prosecutions because the warfare in Ukraine started in February 2022.
The top of Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles critical crimes, launched the case in opposition to Buyanova after the mom of a seven-year-old affected person complained in regards to the physician in a video later picked up by a preferred Telegram channel.
The mom, Anastasia Akinshina, stated Buyanova had referred to her kid’s father, a Russian soldier killed preventing in Ukraine, as a “legitimate target” of Kyiv’s troops throughout a clinic go to in January.
Buyanova’s legal professionals and the docs within the video say there isn’t a laborious proof – similar to an audio or video recording – to show she made the assertion.
The prosecution’s case was based mostly virtually completely on Akinshina’s account and a transcript of an interview with the kid performed by a Federal Safety Service (FSB) officer. The choose rejected the defence’s request to query the boy.
