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00:00Now, a court in Moscow has sentenced a 68-year-old paediatrician to five and a half years behind
00:05bars.
00:06Dr. Nadezhda Boyanova blamed for denouncing Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
00:11For more on this story, we can go to our former Moscow bureau chief, Nick Holdsworth.
00:16Standing by, Nick, good afternoon to you.
00:19Does this verdict reflect a wider crackdown on opposition to the war?
00:25Absolutely.
00:28This 68-year-old paediatrician was accused of criticizing the Russian army in Ukraine
00:35under a law that forbids the spreading of so-called false information about the Russian
00:40army.
00:41The entire case was based upon the word of one of her former patients and, indeed, the
00:47word of a 7-year-old son of that woman, Anastasia Akintchena.
00:53This is one of many such cases, and people are being hauled before the courts for comments
01:00that may or may not be true, that may have been taken out of context, that boil down
01:04to, in this case, the woman allegedly saying that the former husband of the woman who complained
01:12who was killed fighting in Ukraine was a legitimate target for the Ukrainian army.
01:20Now that may or may not be true, but the fact is that hundreds of people have been sentenced
01:25to very long prison sentences in Russia for merely criticizing the war in Ukraine, and
01:32in this case, the prosecution had asked for six years, and the woman has been sentenced
01:36to five and a half years in a penal colony.
01:39She called it absurd in comments made to the judge just before the sentence was read out,
01:45and supporters in court shouted shame on you to the judge after the sentence was announced
01:50in a district court in the north of Moscow earlier today.
01:55Nick, when the war first broke out, we saw those very brave people go out on the streets
02:01of Moscow and across cities in Russia to protest.
02:05Then when we had the draft, of course, we had people who came out on the streets once
02:09again.
02:10We had people come out with just carrying a piece of white paper, and they were picked
02:14up and arrested.
02:16Is there just no space for dissent in Russia anymore?
02:19Basically, there is no space at all left for dissent in Russia anymore.
02:24You don't see any demonstrations on the street.
02:27You don't even see those one-person pickets, as you just mentioned, holding a blank piece
02:31of paper.
02:32There really is virtually no dissent left in Russia at all, and virtually all of the
02:38cases in recent weeks and months against people accused of spreading false information
02:43about the Russian army, that's the name of the law, are based upon private comments,
02:50individuals such as this woman who said that the pediatrician had said these words, criticising
02:57the Russian army, and indeed bringing a 7-year-old child into court, saying my father was a hero,
03:03and the doctor criticised him and criticised the war in Russia.
03:08The defence team said that Nadezhda Buryanova never said any of these words, and indeed
03:15the child wasn't even in the room during the time when the alleged conversation took place.
03:20Nick, thank you very much for that.
03:23Nick Colesworth reporting.