Amnesty International is deeply concerned about the ongoing criminal prosecution under “high treason” charges of Ivan Safronov, a former journalist in prominent Russian newspapers Kommersant and Vedomosti, who had started working as an advisor on information policy to the Head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos less than two months before his arrest.
Amnesty International is also concerned about the growing number of prosecutions under the vaguely worded offence of “high treason”. Particularly worrying is the routine secrecy around every such case in its entirety, including the classification of all case files as secret, forcing defence lawyers into signing non-disclosure agreements before being granted access to the defendant, and closing the entire court hearing to members of the public and the media. This in itself amounts to a violation of the right to a fair trial.