A court in Siberia has ordered a local man to be committed to a psychiatric clinic after he publicly called for the creation of an independent republic comprising the Asian part of Russia.
The prosecutor's office in the Irkutsk Oblast city of Angarsk said on September 20 that the man, whose name was not disclosed, was found guilty of making "public calls for actions aimed at violating the Russian Federation's territorial integrity."
However, it said, the court ruled that he was not responsible for his actions by reason of insanity.
It said the man was forcibly sent to a psychiatric clinic for treatment.
According to the statement, the man used his mobile phone in January 2016 to spread via the Internet calls to create "a separate republic from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean" -- a huge area comprising the entire portion of Russia that lies in Asia.
A number of people have been prosecuted in Russia after calling for the creation of independent republics following Moscow's illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014 and amid an ongoing conflict between government forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
