The Supreme Court of Tatarstan approved the decision to arrest the editor «Idel. Realities»Alsu Kurmasheva. Mediazona was informed about this by the press service of the court.
The journalist is accused of failing to provide documents to be included in the register of “foreign agents” (Part 3 of Article 330.1 of the Criminal Code); she was detained on October 18. Two days later, the investigation asked to place her in custody, but the court initially refused, extending the period of detention for three days. On October 23, the Sovetsky District Court of Kazan sent Kurmasheva to a pre-trial detention center.
The case of the editor of “Idel.Realii” is the first known case of application of Part 3 of Article 330.1 of the Criminal Code, which establishes punishment for refusal to register as a “foreign agent” by a person “carrying out targeted collection of information in the field of military, military-technical activities of the Russian Federation, which if received by foreign sources, they can be used against the security of the Russian Federation.»
According to Tatar-Inform, the investigation believes that Kurmasheva «through the Internet deliberately conducted a targeted collection of military information about Russia's activities in order to transmit information to foreign sources» — in particular, security officials believe that she received information about the mobilized teachers of one of the universities in Tatarstan.
Shortly after Kurmasheva’s arrest, Radio Liberty reported that the journalist had previously lived in Prague; in May, “due to urgent family needs,” she returned to Russia. When she tried to go back to the Czech Republic in June, she was detained at the airport and both her passports, American and Russian, were taken away. On October 11, the magistrate fined Kurmasheva 10 thousand rubles in the case of failure to notify of second citizenship (Article 330.2 of the Criminal Code).