RusNews journalist Maria Ponomarenko, convicted because of posts about the war, went on a hunger strike in pre-trial detention center No. 1 of Barnaul. This was reported by her defender from the human rights project OVD-Info.
According to the lawyer, Ponomarenko was recently transferred to a pre-trial detention center again, and FSIN officers immediately began to put pressure on her. She was not allowed to take a shower, they took away permitted items and food bought in the detention center store, and also threatened to prohibit calls with children.
The defense lawyer added that after a conflict with the administration during lunch, Ponomarenko was sent to a punishment cell. During lunch, the journalist was demanded to write an explanation and promised to regard this as a refusal if she stopped writing and started eating.
In February 2023, 45-year-old Maria Ponomarenko was sentenced to six years in prison in the case of military “fakes” (clause “e” of part 2 of article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). The reason was a post in the telegram channel “No Censorship” about a Russian airstrike on a drama theater in Mariupol.
In the Altai women's colony No. 6 in the village of Shipunovo, where Ponomarenko was under strict conditions of detention, the journalist was accused of attacking the jailers, who forcibly took her to a disciplinary commission.
In January 2024, the case was brought to the district court next to the colony under the article on causing non-life-threatening harm to a FSIN employee (Part 2 of Article 321 of the Criminal Code). They are still considering it now. One of the jailers recognized as victims said at the meeting that he would not have reported Ponomarenko on his own initiative.
The journalist, according to the defender, was transferred to pre-trial detention center-1 from IK-6 of the Altai Territory in the village of Shipunovo on April 8. Ponomarenko had previously been in the Barnaul pre-trial detention center during the investigation and was subjected to cruel treatment there. In September 2022, she opened her veins there.
Another lawyer for Ponomarenko, Dmitry Shitov, emphasized that she has been diagnosed with hysterical personality disorder and that she needs medical psychotherapeutic assistance, which cannot be provided in a pre-trial detention center.
In April 2024, Shitov said that in Barnaul pre-trial detention center-1 her condition worsened: in the detention center, the woman is not given medicines, without which she cannot sleep. On court days, she is also not always given medications prescribed by a psychiatrist.