- Title: Head of Russia's only Ukrainian library gets suspended jail term
- Date: 5th June 2017
- Summary: MOSCOW, RUSSIA (FILE - OCTOBER 2015) (REUTERS) ENTRANCE TO LIBRARY NAME OF LIBRARY IN RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN LIBRARIAN'S POST / BOOKS ON SHELVES VARIOUS OF BOOKS ON SHELVES VARIOUS OF BOOKS ON DISPLAY BOOKS AND DOLLS ON SHELF
- Embargoed: 19th June 2017 11:41
- Keywords: suspended term court decision court Ukrainian library Ukraine Russia
- Location: MOSCOW, RUSSIA
- City: MOSCOW, RUSSIA
- Country: Russia
- Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Judicial Process/Court Cases/Court Decisions
- Reuters ID: LVA0026K02HC7
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: A court in Moscow on Monday (June 5) handed a four-year suspended prison sentence to Natalya Sharina, the head of Russia's only state-run Ukrainian language library.
Sharina was found guilty of inciting ethnic hatred and embezzlement.
Speaking after the verdict was delivered, Sharina said the case against her had been politically motivated. She added her lawyers would appeal the "unjust" court decision.
Rights group Amnesty International released a statement that said the verdict 'demonstrates utter contempt for the rule of law and highlights flaws in the independence of Russia's judiciary'.
The Ukrainian library's problems got serious in October 2015 when armed, masked police carried out a pre-dawn raid and arrested Sharina, then its director, confiscating books the authorities called illegal anti-Russian propaganda.
One of the books, by Dmytro Korchinskiy, a Ukrainian nationalist author banned in Russia, was on a list of "extremist" literature. Library employees said at the time that investigators had planted extremist books to frame them.
The library has since been shut down and all its 52,000 books were transferred to Russia's main foreign language library. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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