The court has overturned the decision to release journalist Alexandra Bayazitova from prison.

In September, a first-instance court replaced the remainder of journalist Aleksandra Bayazitova’s sentence in a standard-regime penal colony with compulsory labour.

Today, the Vladimir Regional Court upheld an appeal from the prosecutor’s office—which requested that this decision be overturned and the original sentence reinstated—reports TASS. Bayazitova, who has been diagnosed with diabetes, glaucoma, and hypertension, will spend about another nine months in the penal colony.

Earlier, she applied for parole, but her petition was rejected.

• In 2023, the journalist was sentenced to five years in a penal colony on charges of large-scale extortion (subsection “b” part 3 of article 163 of the Criminal Code). She has been held in custody since August 2022.
• Law enforcement claimed Bayazitova extorted 1.2 million rubles (about US$13,000) from the vice president of Promsvyazbank in exchange for extending the “negative block” on her Telegram channel “Hellish Babki.” The journalist herself linked her prosecution to her article about how money allocated for government defence contracts was being stolen at Promsvyazbank, and how this impacts the war in Ukraine.