Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, accepted the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo
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“‘… you have to remember how every single ruble ended up in your account.’ If a report is deemed erroneous, a designated “foreign agent” could face a fine of up to 300,000 rubles ($4,250) or a prison term from two to five years […]
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A Russian court has sentenced five former police officers to several years in prison for the 2019 arrest of investigative journalist Ivan Golunov on trumped-up drug charges. … The journalist suffered bruises, cuts, a concussion, and a broken rib […]
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“A growing number of European countries are blocking access to Belarusian airlines. … after Belarus intercepted a commercial flight and removed and arrested Roman Protasevich, an opposition journalist who was on board. … While Western democracies try to sanction Belarus, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, seems to support Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. … Fiona Hill … spoke to NPR’s All Things […]
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Analysts say Moscow’s muted reaction to the diversion to Minsk of a Ryanair flight speaks to the Kremlin’s ambivalent view of the strongman. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Felix Light – May 24, 2021) In the hours after Belarus shocked the world by forcing a Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius to land in Minsk and arresting prominent opposition […]
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Washington is “deeply concerned” by fresh efforts by Russia to target foreign media operating there […]
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“… Belarusian election officials published … preliminary results … [indicating that] Lukashenko … won more than 80 percent …. radically contradict[ing] [opposition] reports … say[ing] [Svetlana] Tikhanovskaya won 70 percent. … Tikhanovskaya’s campaign refuses to recognize the election’s results … [S]he called on ‘those who believe their vote was stolen’ ‘not to remain silent.’ … [R]eporting suggests … tens of […]
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“Novaya Gazeta has blazed a trail by instituting a sexual harassment policy after taking internal accusations of misconduct seriously. Some independent outlets are following suit.” “As her shift at Russia’s investigative Novaya Gazeta newspaper was coming to an end on a late Monday afternoon last January, Elizaveta Kirpanova stopped by a senior reporter’s office to catch up. Kirpanova, a 23-year-old […]
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“In what appears to be an escalating crackdown on Russian journalists by the Federal Security Service (FSB), famous defence reporter Ivan Safronov was arrested … and charged with treason. He faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted. The arrest is only the latest of a series of arrests and cases brought against leading Russian journalists who have simply […]
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Coronavirus has killed five journalists in Russia, according to … the Russian Union of Journalists ….
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, February 18, 2020) Members of professional categories like journalists and doctors are displaying ever greater corporate or collective solidarity because they now feel that the authorities are attacking their rights and have concluded that these attacks will affect the country as a whole, according to Levada Center director Lev Gudkov. This consolidation […]
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(Opendemocracy.net – Ivan Davydov – Dec. 4, 2019) Ivan Davydov is a Russian journalist and writer. His articles can be seen at The New Times, Republic, Inliberty and Gazeta.ru, among other publications. In case you missed it, Russian MPs have spent the past several years debating amendments to media and information legislation which would allow the state to give individual […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Dec. 2, 2019) Russia has passed legislation that will allow individual journalists and bloggers to be labeled “foreign agents,” a move that critics say will tighten curbs on the media and free speech. At least nine news organizations funded by the U.S. government have been designated “foreign agents” under the original version of the law […]
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(Article text ©2019 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Nov. 21, 2019 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/russian-duma-approves-foreign-agents-bill-threatens-journalists/30284789.html) The Russian parliament’s lower chamber, the State Duma, has approved the final reading of a bill allowing reporters who work for organizations officially listed as foreign agents to be designated as foreign agents themselves. The bill, approved on […]
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“Yury Titov … [head of] the press service for … [the] Russian Internal Affairs Ministry [Moscow branch], has been disciplined in connection with the case against Meduza correspondent Ivan Golunov, RBC reported. Titov and the press service … have not yet commented on the disciplinary actions … Alexander Khaminsky … former advisor for the Moscow police … submitted a[ related] […]
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“… thirty leading Russian and international news outlets … published the report Ivan Golunov was working on … before his arrest. Journalists from seven Russian media sources had already begun working to complete the report …. Golunov’s exposé … shed light on corruption and FSB ties in the Moscow funeral industry. … [and] includes allegations of misconduct committed by intelligence […]
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Subject: Book announcement Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2018 From: John Helmer The Man Who Knows Too MuchAbout Russia By John Helmer THE GENUINE GOLDEN SHOWER – JOHN HELMER’S MEMOIRS OF VLADIMIR PUTIN FROM 1991 TO 2018 John Helmer is the longest serving foreign correspondent in Russia; he has been reporting from Moscow since 1989, and on Wednesday, December 19, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Evan Gershkovich – November 15, 2017) After the Kremlin-backed RT news outlet begrudgingly registered as a foreign agent on Monday, Russia promised to retaliate. Earlier on Wednesday, its lawmakers did just that. New legislation, which will allow authorities to brand any international media organization a “foreign agent,” passed swiftly through three readings in the State […]
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“… Anton Troianovski of the Wall Street Journal will become The Post’s Moscow bureau chief. Anton has distinguished himself over a nine-year career at the Journal that has included assignments in New York and Berlin. He has covered commercial real estate, telecoms, and, since 2013, has led the Journal’s coverage of German politics and society, delivering insightful and revelatory work […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 30, 2017) The man who stabbed a radio editor in Moscow last week was a “sick person” without political motives, President Vladimir Putin said Monday. Tatyana Felgenhauer, a deputy editor at the liberal-learning Ekho Moskvy radio station, was stabbed last week by a Russian-Israeli man believed to have mental health issues. Two state television […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 23 (Interfax) – The individual who attacked Tatyana Felgengauer, the Ekho Moskvy radio station’s deputy editor-in-chief, has failed to provide a rational explanation for his actions, providing confusing testimony. “[I was] compelled [to attack the journalist] because she harassed me for two months,” the attacker said in a video, which was posted on the radio station’s Telegram account. […]
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“… the declaration of the new association, Freedom of Speech, appeared on the website of Ekho and other media, demanding that the perpetrators of the threats be held responsible and also that there be an end to the culture of impunity in general. …”
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“There are two Russias at the moment. The first is the evil “Putin’s Russia” that kills journalists, bombs civilians and invades other countries. Then there is “bull Russia”, where investors have been making fat profits ….”
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“… I was the editor of a monthly magazine and wanted the journalist to expand his report for my publication. ‘I made it up,’ he said breezily when I called him. That could mean several things. He could indeed have made the story up. Alternatively, he could have been lying when he said he had made it up. Maybe he […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Nataliya Rostova – November 23, 2016) Nataliya Rostova is a visiting scholar at the Kennan Institute and author of the GorbyMedia project. The idea of conducting a survey of Russian journalists came to me after seeing something similar in New York magazine, which earlier this year polled 113 people working in the US media on the problems and […]
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It’s been ten years since an assassin put four bullets in Anna Politkovskaya — three in her chest, one in her head, the hallmark of a contract hit. … We can recall her career and her drive to cover the horrors of #Chechnya in ways few would. … We can quote her many articles and books for their continued relevance. […]
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Physical attacks and management interference have put Russian journalists’ safety – and their ability to work freely – back on the table. A new union will have to survive in an increasingly hostile environment. (opendemocracy.net – Nataliya Rostova – May 16, 2016) Nataliya Rostova is a visiting scholar at the Kennan Institute, senior correspondent for current affairs portal Slon.ru and […]
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(Human Rights in Ukraine – khpg.org – Halya Coynash – May 13, 2016) Ruslan Kotsaba, a controversial Ivano-Frankivsk journalist and blogger, has been sentenced to three and a half years’ imprisonment. The Ivano-Frankivsk City Court found the journalist, who has been in detention for 14 months guilty of obstructing the legitimate activities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces over a video […]
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MOSCOW. March 10 (Interfax) – A criminal investigation has been opened after unknown persons attacked a minibus carrying human rights activists and journalists on the administrative border between Ingushetia and Chechnya, in Russia’s North Caucasus, last night, a spokesman for the region’s security services told Interfax. “A criminal case has been launched under Article 167 (deliberate destruction or damage of […]
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Russian society tries to keep its nerve. The Kremlin thrives on it, the papers amplify it-but nobody can quite control this profound paranoia. (opendemocracy.net – ANNA ARUTUNYAN – December 22, 2015) Anna Arutunyan is a Russian-American journalist and the author of The Putin Mystique. She is currently a fellow at the Kennan Institute in Washington. Russian society tries to keep […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daria Litvinova – December 4, 2015) Immediately following the harrowing terrorist attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, Russian pro-Kremlin media adjusted their rhetoric, abandoning their previous anti-Western and anti-U.S. vitriol even before the Kremlin spoke of a broad military alliance. “A listener called Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station … and said that Americans are not our […]
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(RFE/RL – Roman Super, Robert Coalson – MOSCOW – September 20, 2015) If Russian journalism has a patron saint, his name is Yasen Zasursky. The ailing 85-year-old headed the Moscow State University (MGU) journalism department for more than 40 years before becoming its president emeritus in 2007. The roster of respected journalists who received their diplomas from him is astounding: […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos – August 10, 2015) Prominent Western experts and journalists accused a Russian publishing house Sunday of pirating their work and printing books using their names without their permission or prior knowledge. Journalists Luke Harding and Edward Lucas and U.S.-based Russia expert Donald Jensen confirmed to The Moscow Times that they did not know […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – February 9, 2015) Ukrainian authorities have detained a journalist on suspicion of treason after he released a video calling for his countrymen to avoid military draft amid the conflict between pro-Russian rebels and Kiev government forces in the east of the country. Security agents have taken Ruslan Kotsaba, a journalist in largely […]
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(Interfax – September 3, 2014) Rossiya Segodnya news agency photographer Andrei Stenin died on the Snizhne-Dmytrivka road in southeastern Ukraine in the Ukrainian army’s attack on a refugee convoy, Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Interfax. “Detectives have discovered circumstances of the journalist’s death : A. Stenin was on a field trip to Snizhne, Ukraine, on August 5,” the […]
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MOSCOW, June 9 (RIA Novosti) – A Moscow City Court prosecutor said on Monday the life sentence handed down to those found guilty of Anna Politkovskaya’s murder was the highest achievement of Russian justice, but the outcome will only satisfy the complainants when the mastermind of the murder is established. “We find the sentence lawful, founded and just. This is […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Aleksandra Vagner – LUHANSK, Ukraine, May 29, 2014) Probably the most surprising thing that struck me during my four days reporting from the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine last week came as soon as I arrived. Men armed with automatic weapons stood around the station, watching everything that was going on. From what I’d read, I had expected such men […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alexei Eremenko, RBTH – April 25, 2014) During his annual live TV call-in show on April 18, President Vladimir Putin promised that authorities will stop pressuring the liberal Dozhd TV channel. Dozhd (“Rain”) is now hoping to get picked up again by the cable providers that dropped it at the beginning of the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 19, 2014) The State Duma’s ethics committee will investigate Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky after the firebrand politician directed a particularly crude and offensive outburst at reporters on Friday. After being asked whether Russia should retaliate against the travel restrictions placed on Russian men by Ukraine, Zhirinovsky went on a foul-mouthed tirade and […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 15, 2014) Nabi Abdullaev, a former deputy editor-in-chief of The Moscow Times, will replace Andrew McChesney at the helm of the newspaper later this week, MT publisher Ekaterina Movsumova said Monday. Abdullaev, who most recently headed RIA Novosti’s foreign-language news service, said he would concentrate on further developing The Moscow Times into a major […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – KYIV – April 12, 2014) Just a few weeks ago, Yehor Sobolev was warned not to expect Ukraine’s parliament to pass legislation that would require judges to be screened for corruption and political bias. But on April 8, lawmakers did just that when a so-called “judicial lustration” bill sailed through the Verhovna Rada following street rallies that […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, April 9, 2014) Secretary of the Union of Journalists of Russia [UJR] Pavel Gutionov has described the current state of affairs in Russian journalism as the most serious crisis in its entire history. “Our profession is experiencing the most serious crisis in its entire history. It has even been suggested that journalism will not survive at all,” […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – February 13, 2014) Russia came 148th out of 180 countries on this year’s press freedom rankings from Reporters Without Borders, keeping the same spot that it occupied last year. France-based Reporters Without Borders said that the level of freedom of information violations throughout the world increased by 1.8 percent compared with 2012. Some of the […]
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MOSCOW, February 10 (RIA Novosti) – A reporter for Russia’s leading television channel admitted lifting huge chunks of a nationalist report about the Sochi Olympics’ opening ceremony for use in her own report, which aired over the weekend. Irada Zeinalova said she quoted a report by Kremlin-bashing web resource Sputnik & Pogrom without attribution for a broadcast on Channel One. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – January 16, 2014) As pundits speculated about possible political repercussions of Russia’s decision to bar U.S. journalist David Satter, the country’s often cumbersome and conflicting visa application process came into the spotlight on Wednesday. While for some observers the visa bureaucracy was seen as a tool to cushion the state’s political decisions, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – January 14, 2014) Russia has barred a U.S. journalist for five years in a move that has triggered a frenzy between Russian authorities and Western media on Tuesday, signaling possible heightened tensions ahead of upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. It was not clear whether David Satter, 66, was banned entry into […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 3, 2014) Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders has urged Russia to free opposition journalists locked up in the country’s jails, expressing concern that lesser-known cases would be forgotten after the recent release of high-profile prisoners. “The release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Pussy Riot and Greenpeace activists must not divert attention from the many other threats […]
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(RIA Novosti – December 23, 2013) Editor in Chief of Moskovskiy Komsomolets daily Pavel Gusev, TV presenter Kseniya Sobchak and Editor in Chief of Ekho Moskvy radio Aleksey Venediktov have been named as Russia’s most frequently quoted journalists, RIA Novosti news agency reported on 23 December quoting media monitoring service Medialogiya. They were followed by TV journalists Nikolay Svanidze and […]
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