A Russian state television employee who stormed a live broadcast on Monday was interrogated by the police for 14 hours and fined by a Moscow court on Tuesday.
“I spent two days without sleep,” the woman, Marina Ovsyannikova, said in a video recorded outside the courtroom on Tuesday by Mediazona, an online news site.
“I wasn’t allowed to contact my relatives or people close to me,” Ovsyannikova said, adding that she was not allowed “access to any legal representation, so I was in a fairly difficult position”.
Ovsyannikova, who worked for Channel 1 in Moscow, was detained on Monday after she burst onscreen during a popular news show, yelling, “Stop the war!” and holding up a sign that read, “They’re lying to you here.”
Immediately after, a Russian human rights group named OVD-Info circulated a pre-recorded video in which Ovsyannikova said she was “deeply ashamed” to have helped make “Kremlin propaganda”.
The fine issued on Tuesday was for that video, not the on-air protest. She was charged with organising an unauthorised public event and fined the equivalent of about $273.
