A Russian court on Tuesday sentenced a blogger to five years in prison for a tweet that called for attacks on the children of law enforcement officials, news agencies reported .
Moscow’s Presnensky district court found Vladislav Sinitsa guilty on extremism charges and ruled he must serve five years in a penal colony, Russia’s three main news agencies reported from the court.
Sinitsa, a manager who wrote on Twitter under the pseudonym Max_Steklov and lives in a town outside Moscow, was detained last month over the tweet he posted on July 31, according to investigators.
He was charged with inciting hatred against a social group using the Internet and with a threat of violence, under Russia’s harsh anti-extremism legislation.
The tweet was written in response to a police crackdown on demonstrations calling for fair elections, which have seen tens of thousands take to the streets of Moscow in recent weeks.
Sinitsa in his tweet imagined a situation in which people found the homes of law enforcement officers to kidnap and kill their children, which investigators said was a call to violence.
His tweet was picked up and reported on by pro-Kremlin media.
Sinitsa’s case was rushed through in a single hearing. Prosecutors had asked for the maximum possible sentence of six years.
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