A court in the Russian city of St. Petersburg sentenced anti-war activist Olga Smirnova to six years in prison on August 30 on a charge of spreading fake news about the armed forces.
I tried to look through a lot of cases. It seemed like most every case was leaking information, threats of actual violence, stolen valor, or other generally agreed upon crimes. There’s truth to the notion that a government is more likely to look for crimes if you’re a specific person, but I don’t know of anyone in the modern US who goes to jail for lying about things the army has done. I use the word “lying” because Russia courts make the claim that that’s what happened here.
Also, there are more recent cases of Russia imprisoning someone for essentially this same crime.
Can you provide proof that people in today’s US have been given jail time for posting online government criticism?
I tried to look through a lot of cases. It seemed like most every case was leaking information, threats of actual violence, stolen valor, or other generally agreed upon crimes. There’s truth to the notion that a government is more likely to look for crimes if you’re a specific person, but I don’t know of anyone in the modern US who goes to jail for lying about things the army has done. I use the word “lying” because Russia courts make the claim that that’s what happened here.
Also, there are more recent cases of Russia imprisoning someone for essentially this same crime.