Russia: Opposition Politician Ilya Yashin Loses Appeal Against Jail Term

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FILE - Russian opposition activist and former municipal deputy of the Krasnoselsky district Ilya Yashin gestures, smiling, as he stands in a defendant's cubicle in a courtroom, prior to a hearing in Moscow, Russia, on Dec. 9, 2022. A Russian court on Wednesday is scheduled to hear on his appeal of his prison sentence. Last December, Yashin, was sentenced to 8½ years in prison on charges of spreading false information about the military, part of the authorities' crackdown on critics of Moscow's action in Ukraine. (Yury Kochetkov/Pool via AP, Pool, File)

The Moscow City Court has rejected an appeal filed by lawyers for jailed opposition politician Ilya Yashin against a prison sentence handed to him in December on a charge of spreading false information about the Russian military amid the invasion of Ukraine.

Yashin took part in the April 19 hearing by video link from a detention centre in Moscow after the court rejected his request to be physically present for the session.

Yashin, 39, is an outspoken Kremlin critic and one of the few prominent opposition politicians who stayed in Russia after a wave of repression against supporters of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny and those who have spoken against Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine since it was launched in February 2022.

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