Russian newspaper editor jailed for anti-Semitic incitement

A court in the Russian city of St. Petersburg has found the editor-in-chief of the newspaper ‘Orthodox Russia’ guilty of incitement to hate against Jews and sentenced him to three years in prison. Konstantin Dushenov is to serve his sentence at a settlement colony, the court told the ‘Interfax’ news agency. Two other people accused of the same crime were handed suspended sentences of 18 months and one year respectively.

Dushenov was accused of disseminating the hate movie ‘Russia With a Knife in Its Back – Jewish Fascism and the Genocide of the Russian People’ and of publishing extremist articles between January 2005 to mid-March 2007. He and the other two co-accused were convicted under a law which punishes "fomenting hatred and enmity toward and humiliation of a person, or a group of people, based on their ethnic background, origin, or religion." The maximum sentence is five years in prison.

Prosecutors had requested a jail sentence of four years for Dushenov. While human rights groups in Russia welcomed the verdict, Dushenov said he would appeal. Dozens of his supporters attended the sentencing holding up Orthodox Church icons.