The Riga City Court (Latvia) has sentenced TikToker Dmitriy Mataev, who was accused of justifying genocide, crimes against humanity, peace and war crimes, as well as inciting national, ethnic and racial hatred.
The court found Mataev guilty under both articles of the Criminal Law of Latvia, sentencing him to a total of one year in prison. This term will include the time he spent in custody since April 25, 2024. It was on this day that he was detained by the State Security Service of Latvia (SDB).
This spring, the SDB without naming the detainee, reported that the criminal proceedings against the said person were initiated on March 26, when a number of videos published by Dmitriy Matayev in Russian containing signs of crimes were found on TikTok.
SDB explained that the detainee in his TikTok videos “expressed support for Russia and the war in Ukraine, and also spoke aggressively and hatefully about Latvians and other residents of Latvia who support Ukraine.”
During the criminal proceedings, SDB seized several data storage devices, personal records, as well as clothing and other items with Russian and Soviet symbols. The detainee drew the attention of the SDB back in 2023 in connection with aggressive comments on Facebook, in which he expressed support for Russia.
In August 2023, SDB held a preventive conversation with Mataev, warning him that such actions could be compared to crimes under the criminal law. However, as noted by SDB, in the spring of 2024, Dmitriy Mataev was very active on TikTok and Telegram, where in various videos he complained about “linguistic genocide against Russians” and other “problems”.
