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A Russian court has sentenced Armen Aramyan, co-founder of the independent student magazine DOXA, to 10 years and 1 month in prison in absentia on charges of justifying terrorism and spreading “false information” about the Russian army, media outlet Mediazona reported earlier today.
The exiled publication cited its own correspondent, who was reporting from Russia’s Second Western District Military Court.
Aramyan was charged over a DOXA Twitter post from Aug. 3, 2022, which included a map documenting the Russian army's executions of civilians in Bucha, as well as an op-ed published on Jan. 13, 2023, titled “The Time for Protest is Over, the Time for Resistance Has Begun” — which called for opponents of the Russian government to adopt more aggressive tactics:
“Most importantly, such resistance must necessarily expand the boundaries of how we understand nonviolent protest and the permissibility of political violence. We cannot allow a dictatorship to impose on us a language in which the arson of a military registration and enlistment office with zero casualties is called ‘terrorism’ or ‘extremism.’”
The prosecution claimed Aramyan was the founder and editor-in-chief of DOXA and cited a satirical tweet from a user named “I haven't come up with a nickname yet,” who jokingly stated that Aramyan had “completely seized control of DOXA.” Prosecutors had sought a 12-year and 1-month sentence, but the court ruled for a slightly shorter term, counting in Aramyan’s favor positive character references and the absence of aggravating circumstances.
During the trial, defense attorney Leonid Solovyov argued for Aramyan’s full acquittal, asserting that he had not justified terrorism and that the tweet about Bucha contained no falsehoods, as it cited credible sources.
Aramyan, who now lives in Europe, told The Moscow Times that he hoped Thursday’s sentencing would not lead to real jail time.
“There’s always a risk that I could end up transiting through a country that decides to extradite me to Russia, and that’s a risk I’ll have to live with,” he said in a written statement. “Right now, though, there are people who are far less fortunate — those who are actually forced to serve these insane sentences,” Aramyan added, calling on supporters to donate to organizations assisting political prisoners in Russia.
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office labeled DOXA an “undesirable” organization last year, effectively criminalizing any affiliation with the publication.
In October, Russia’s financial watchdog added Aramyan to their list of “terrorists and extremists,” resulting in his bank accounts being frozen.
Aramyan fled to Armenia — and later Germany — after he and fellow DOXA editors were sentenced to two years of correctional labor in April 2022 for allegedly inciting minors to protest in support of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny in 2021.
Founded in 2017, DOXA lost its official student organization status in 2019 after Moscow’s Higher School of Economics cracked down on political activism following that year’s opposition protests.