The “foreign agents” law is another weapon used against organizations or individuals critical of the Kremlin. In March, the authorities also passed several laws punishing heavy prison sentences for what they consider to be “false information” about the conflict. Since the start of the military operation, the sites of many Russian and foreign media have been blocked in Russia. The newspaper received a first warning on March 22, then a second on March 28. Specifically, it is blamed on Novaïa Gazeta for not specifying that an NGO mentioned in one of its articles was qualified as a “foreign agent” by the Russian authorities, as required by law.
#The last bastion award free#
In February 2022, its single-issue circulation was around 100,000 copies, while the completely free site claimed 40 million visits in the same month. Respected, Novaïa Gazeta nevertheless remains relatively marginal in Russia. And that they work without a net or protection. We would like to write on other themes but the number people who turn to Novaïa Gazeta to denounce an injustice is so high that our journalistic commitment ends up being confused with a fight for human rights.” By dipping their pen in the wounds of Russia, the journalists of Novaïa Gazeta know that they are risking their necks at all times. “At least 80% of the information we publish is not treated by any other newspaper, underlined to L’Express Sergei Sokolov in 2009, the deputy editor at the time. She was one of the rare Russian journalists to denounce human rights violations in Chechnya, and to openly criticize the abuses of the regime. This commitment cost the lives of six of her collaborators, including the famous journalist Anna Politkovskaïa, assassinated in 2006. “We tried to understand how our people allowed two wars to be waged at once: one, of conquest, in Ukraine, and another, almost civil, at home, in Russia.” On March 22, the journalist announced that he was selling his Nobel Prize medal for the benefit of Ukrainian refugees.įounded in 1993, the newspaper Novaïa Gazeta enjoys a high reputation for its investigations into corruption and human rights abuses, particularly in Chechnya. He says his reporters have covered combat zones in Ukraine and estimated the extent of “losses and destruction”.
But since the beginning of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, the authorities are still tightening their grip around the last independent media in the country. This award and the international aura of Novaïa Gazeta seemed so far to have relatively preserved the pressures. In 2021, this work, which cost the lives of several of its reporters, earned its editor, Dmitry Muratov, the Nobel Peace Prize. Pillar of investigative journalism, Novaïa Gazeta has been publishing investigations into corruption and human rights abuses in Russia for nearly 30 years. According to the Nobel Prize, its editorial staff continued its work for 34 days “under conditions of military censorship”, since the launch of the Russian offensive on February 24.
Novaïa Gazeta announced that it had decided to suspend its publications on its site, on social networks and in paper format after receiving a second warning from the telecoms policeman, Roskomnadzor, for breaching a controversial law on “foreign agents”. in chief Dmitry Muratov, in a letter addressed to the readers of the newspaper. But we must protect each other,” the editor wrote. For us, and I know for you, this is a terrible and painful decision. It was the last bastion of the free and independent press in Russia. Faced with the Kremlin’s crackdown on the dissonant voices rising as Russia wages war on Ukraine, the newspaper took a heavy decision on Monday, March 28: to suspend publication until the end of the intervention in the neighboring country. The prestigious Nobel Peace Prize awarded to its editor was not enough to protect the independent Russian newspaper Novaïa Gazeta.
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