Over 8,000 people reportedly convicted for violence against government representatives in Russia in 2022

In 2022, a total of 8,261 people were sentenced under the article on inflicting violence against government representatives in Russia, media outlet RBC reports, citing the Supreme Court statistics.

This is the biggest number of cases per year in the last six years.

In 2022, 7,638 citizens were convicted under part 1 of the article — inflicting violence not dangerous to life or health against government representatives.

“Furthermore, 623 people were sentenced under part 2 of the article — inflicting violence dangerous to life or health against government representatives,” RBC notes.

In 2021, 7,523 people were convicted under this article.

At the same time, the media outlet claims that in 2022 the number of sentences under the article on insulting a government representative decreased. Around 8,700 people were convicted under this article in 2020, around 6,700 in 2021, and only around 4,600 in 2022.

Moreover, compared to 2021 there was an increase in the number of people convicted under the articles on public calls for terrorism or justification of terrorism (from 29 to 41), under the same articles but using the media (from 170 to 233), as well as under the articles on persuading or involving others in terrorist activities (from 64 to 126).

In 2022, the number of convictions on disclosure of state secrets increased to 66. Furthermore, the number of people sentenced for illegally obtaining state secrets — including by theft, deception, or blackmail — increased from 2 in 2021 to 12 in 2022.