The European Court of Human Rights has awarded 7.5 thousand euros compensation to Ulyanovsk resident Valeria Volodina due to the fact that the police refused to investigate the persecution by her former partner in social networks. The decision was published on the court's website.
In 2019, the European court already recognized the inaction of the Russian authorities in relation to Volodina. The court decision stated that the applicant's former boyfriend, Rashad Salayev, six months after they met, began to beat her on a regular basis, and after parting he damaged the brakes in her car. Another time, Salaev forcibly took Volodina from Moscow back to Ulyanovsk, but the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Investigative Committee ignored the girl's statements.
Volodina's new complaint to the ECHR was related to harassment in instant messengers and social networks. According to the applicant, Salayev had sent her death threats, and in 2016 hacked into the VKontakte page that Volodina was running under a false name. On this page, the young man indicated the real name of the ex-girlfriend, added her son's acquaintances and teachers as friends, and then posted copies of Volodina's passport and intimate photos. The girl said that Salaev himself confessed to her in breaking the page.
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In addition, in 2018, accounts appeared on VKontakte and Instagram on behalf of Volodina with intimate photos and personal data.
The police refused to investigate the threats, but in March 2018 they opened a case for interference with fake accounts (article 137 of the Criminal Code). A year later, the investigation was suspended, and in the fall of 2020, the case was closed due to the end of the two-year statute of limitations.
Volodina asked, as part of the investigation, to prohibit her former partner from contacting her, but the investigators refused her. In January 2019, police refused to open a case over Salayev’s reports, believing that the threats were not “real”.
“Cases of harassment on the Internet now refer to the manifestation of violence against women and girls, and may include various types of interference with privacy, including the publication of data or photographs, including intimate ones,” the decision says. “The [Council of Europe member states] should investigate cases of domestic violence and apply methods to protect victims of it.”
The court considered that in this case Valeria Volodina's right to protection of her private life was violated (Article 8 of the European Convention). “This is the first decision of the ECHR on the topic of revenge porn and cyberstalking,” said the representatives of the