Journalist Olga Komleva, who was sentenced to 12 years, has been transferred from Ufa, a major city in the Urals, ahead of her appeal.

Olga Komleva, a journalist from Ufa—a major city in the Urals—has been transferred from remand prison SIZO-1 in Ufa to SIZO-5 in Dyurtyuli, according to her support group.

This morning at 8:30am, her lawyer was unable to visit Komleva and was informed about the transfer. The support group wrote: “If this is true, it is a violation of the court order. The court specified that Olga should be held in Ufa’s SIZO-1 until the appeal.”

On 29 July, the Kirovsky District Court in Ufa sentenced Komleva to 12 years in a general regime penal colony on charges of “spreading military fakes” and participation in the FBK. The case was heard behind closed doors. The prosecutor requested a 13-year sentence for Komleva.

In March 2024, security forces came to Komleva’s home in Ufa, demanding that she attend an interrogation in connection with a criminal case, but did not serve her with a summons. The journalist speculated this might be because of her coverage of the “Baymak case,” which was brought against participants of a public rally in support of Bashkir activist Fail Alsynov.

Later, security forces came to Komleva again, this time with an official order to bring her in for questioning as a witness in the FBK case. During her detention, a law enforcement officer told her to gather essential belongings. When she asked whether she would be arrested, the officer refused to answer.

Already at the Investigative Committee building for Ufa’s Kirovsky District, Komleva was charged with “membership in an extremist community” (Part 2, Article 282.1 of the Criminal Code). The journalist was detained for 48 hours and then sent to a remand prison the next day.

According to the investigation, Komleva “voluntarily joined the extremist community under the ‘influence of propaganda’ from the FBK (‘The Navalny Team’) extremist organisation.”

In July, Komleva faced a new charge. This time, she was accused of spreading military “fakes” motivated by political hatred (subsection “d,” Part 2, Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). The grounds for this additional charge remain unclear.

In March this year, Komleva’s husband reported harassment against the journalist by staff at Ufa’s SIZO-1. During searches, a female guard “palpated her breasts near the nipples […] after a walk, she also ran her hands over her chest and nipples,” and later touched the detainee’s buttocks. Following media attention and a complaint to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the harassment stopped.

Komleva’s husband believes this was linked to a lawsuit the journalist had filed against SIZO-1 in Ufa in December. She was challenging the censorship and incomplete delivery of her letters to the intended recipients.