Via Middle East Times -
MOSCOW -- A Russian blogger could face two years in prison for insulting police in his online diary on the popular Web site livejournal.com, local prosecutors said Monday.
Prosecutors in the northern Russian city of Syktyvkar have charged blogger Savva Terentyev with hate speech crimes carrying penalties ranging from a 100,000-ruble ($4,000) fine to two years in prison, the Komi regional prosecutor's office said in a statement.
A February 2007 post by Terentyev included "a direct call aimed at inciting hatred or hostility, as well as harming the dignity of ... a particular social group: policemen," the prosecutor said.
The offending message has been deleted from the site, though local news agency BNKomi quoted the original entry as likening police officers to thugs and suggesting that they should be burned.
Terentyev's blog, which focuses mostly on his music listening habits, contained hundreds of messages of support and outrage over the case from other livejournal.com users.
Anton Nosik, director of livejournal.com's chief administrator in Russia, told daily Kommersant that the case was "absurd." "The ignorance of local judges often plays a role in the outcome of cases connected to the Internet," Nosik said. "I hope that with many journalists present, the judge will look at the essence of the case and not simply hand down a guilty verdict."
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