Novaya Gazeta (Moscow-based) is facing prosecution for “discrediting the Russian army”, the administrative case has been referred to Moscow’s Tagansky District Court.
It is unclear what drew the attention of the Russian authorities.
Novaya Gazeta clarified case details:
“The report was filed in December already. It came after the publication of Tatyana Britskaya’s text entitled ‘What a priest!’ in Novaya Rasskaz-Gazeta. The case has now been referred to court,” spokesperson for the newspaper Nadezhda Prusenkova said.
In September, Moscow’s Tagansky Court already fined Novaya Gazeta for “discreditation”. The newspaper was then fined 400,000 rubles (€5,500). The administrative case was brought up following publications of articles by Alexander Minkin, Andrey Kolesnikov, and Kirill Fokin which were published in the first edition of Novaya Rasskaz-Gazeta.
“The texts themselves did not include a single word about the armed forces or their use,” said Sergey Sokolov, deputy editor-in-chief of the media outlet.
Russia’s Internet watchdog, Roskomnadzor, sued Novaya Gazeta after two warnings for lacking the “foreign agent” disclaimer which is required by Russia when mentioning organisations that are recognised as such. One of them was already taken off the “foreign agent” list at the moment of publication.
On 5 September, Novaya Gazeta’s printed edition media licence was found to be invalid and cancelled. On 15 September, the digital edition’s licence was also revoked.
In November, the Internet watchdog blocked websites of Novaya Gazeta and its project dubbed Free Space. The agency defended the decision, saying that it views the websites as mirrors of Novaya Rasskaz-Gazeta which was already blocked at the time.
