The court acquitted commentator of media outlet “Poltavshchyna”, who was accused of separatism

On August 7, Oktiabrskiy district court of Poltava acquitted and judged not guilty citizen M., who was accused of calls to change the borders of Ukraine in his comments at the website of online media outlet “Poltavshchyna”, “Poltavshchyna” reports.

According to the media outlet, in 2018 the oblast SBU branch accused the commentator of “Poltavshchyna” with a nickname Myshko of crime described in part 1, article 110 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Calls to change the borders of the territory of Ukraine”). The punishment for this crime is from three to five years in prison.

The accused Poltava resident constantly commented the news at the website since 2010. After his main account was blocked, he registered several hundreds of various nicknames, most of them got banned, too. In his comments, he did not hide his pro-Russian views and often made derogatory statements about Ukrainian state and statehood.

The court, however, judged that the comments were satirical evaluative judgments that, according to the law, are not to be punished for.