Activist Threatened With Jail for Tweeting in Court

By The Moscow Times

Feb. 22, 2012

The head of drivers' rights group Blue Buckets faces a possible 15-day jail sentence for having posted messages on Twitter during a court hearing.

Peter Shkumatov attended a hearing on Tuesday in the case of a woman who had gotten into an accident while driving under the influence and wrote posts on Twitter about what was going on using his phone.

After discovering this fact, the judge had him removed from the courtroom, ruling that he needed to receive the court's permission to write on the Web during a hearing, the activist wrote in a message on his Twitter account.

"Wow, [Article] 17.3 disrespect to the judge! Soon I'll be running [news] from a hearing on myself," Shkumatov wrote.

He was charged with not complying with a court order, which carries a 1,000 ruble ($33) fine or 15-day administrative arrest.

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