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RusNews journalist Maria Ponomarenko has been transferred to Penal Colony No. 6 in the village of Shipunovo, Altai Krai, southern Siberia. Her support group reported this.
In March, the Shipunovsky District Court issued a verdict in Ponomarenko’s new criminal case: she was sentenced to one year and ten months in a general regime penal colony for allegedly using violence against a penal colony officer (part 2, article 321 of the Criminal Code). The journalist was accused of scratching an employee of Penal Colony No. 6 in August 2023. Ponomarenko did not admit guilt and said prison officers had suffocated her with a pillow and banged her head against the floor.
During her imprisonment, the journalist has been repeatedly placed in a punishment cell or solitary confinement, most recently in July. In March, she wrote in letters from pre-trial detention that she had slit her veins due to constant abuse from Federal Penitentiary Service staff.
On 13 August, Maria Ponomarenko disappeared after being transferred to Penal Colony No. 6 in Shipunovo. This was reported by her lawyer, Dmitry Shitov.
According to him, the penal colony administration refused to disclose the journalist’s whereabouts. Shitov visited the facility in person.
“Maria is not here, and the staff at Penal Colony No. 6 are communicating with me with their bodycams [video recorders] switched on. They also refuse to say where she is. Judging by the situation, she was here. Apparently, something has happened. How is anyone supposed to provide legal assistance when prison staff actively obstruct it?” the lawyer wrote.
He noted that back in July, he had sent a request to the Altai Krai Federal Penitentiary Service about where Ponomarenko would serve her sentence. According to Dmitry Shitov, the administration “only half” answered, stating that the woman was in Penal Colony No. 9.
“The second part of the request was ignored. <…> She was transferred from Penal Colony No. 9 in Rubtsovsk, presumably, to Penal Colony No. 6 in Shipunovo,” the lawyer added.
- In February 2023, the Leninsky District Court in Barnaul, a major city in Siberia, sentenced Maria Ponomarenko to six years in a penal colony over an “army fakes” case (subsection “d,” part 2, article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). The prosecution was triggered by her post about the attack on the drama theatre in Mariupol, where civilians were present. Ponomarenko was one of the first people in Russia to be prosecuted under the “military fakes” law.