The Barnaul Court sentenced the activist Dmitry Bychkov to a conditional three years’ imprisonment for reposting “VKontakte” photos of a live cartridge and the commentary to it.

      Bychkov was found guilty of public calls to terrorism, as the Russian service of “BBC” reported on Friday, May 15. The photo that became a reason for opening a criminal case against Bychkov depicted a live cartridge with the caption: “The only argument the government is ready to hear, for other arguments you have liberal rallies”. Commenting the repost, Bychkov agreed with the author of the post and wrote: “I agree with Max, terror must become a trend among all levels of population”. According to BBC, the author of the post was a right-wing activist Maksim Kalinichenko.

      He was not accused in connection with the post. Meanwhile, in February 2015 Kalinichenko was arrested being accused of creating a community of “Russian right sector” at “VKontakte”. Bychkov noted that the fact the repost was made by him was not proven. According to him, his account “VKontakte” was created while he was staying in remand prison, so several people have access to it. According to BBC, the activist also ordered an alternative examination from the Moscow “Laboratory of Applied Linguistics”. The experts concluded that his comment did not contain a call to terrorism, for the phrase was not formulated as an imperative sentence.