Paris deplored Monday evening the sentencing of Frenchman Laurent Vinatier to three years in prison on the grounds that he was not registered in the register of “foreign agents”, judging this sentence “extremely severe“.
This researcher specializing in the post-Soviet space was employed on Russian soil by the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Swiss NGO which mediates in conflicts outside official diplomatic circuits.
“The ‘foreign agents’ legislation contributes to a systematic violation of fundamental freedoms in Russia, such as freedom of association, freedom of opinion, and freedom of expression“, reacted Christophe Lemoine, spokesperson for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adding that Paris was asking “immediate release” of his national.
This legislation “contributes to abolishing the last spaces of freedom available to civil society, independent media and political oppositions in Russia“, added the spokesperson for the Quai d’Orsay. And she “goes against Russia’s human rights commitments“, he also noted.
The French authorities remain “fully mobilized to provide assistance“.
Laurent Vinatier risked up to five years in prison, but the prosecutor had requested earlier Monday a sentence of three years and three months in prison against the Frenchman. Mr. Vinatier’s Russian lawyers, Oleg Bessonov and Alexeï Sinitsine, had already deplored in the wake of this conviction a “harsh verdict“. “We will, of course, appeal“, they announced.
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