Journalist Ilya Azar stages a protest in the centre of Moscow, 17 August 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE/SERGEI ILNITSKY
Police have searched the Moscow homes of relatives of Novaya Gazeta Europe journalist Ilya Azar and three former municipal politicians, state-owned news agency TASS reported on Wednesday.
The searches related to a case against the Deputies of Peaceful Russia, an association of anti-war municipal and regional deputies, which was declared an “undesirable organisation” in 2024, TASS said. The three politicians whose relatives’ homes were searched were Igor Glek, Galina Filchenko and Nodari Khananashvili, it said.
Last month, the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office opened a case against Azar, Glek and two other former Moscow politicians, Yelena Rusakova and Sergey Vlasov, for their involvement with the Deputies of Peaceful Russia. Azar and Glek both live abroad. The Russian Justice Ministry added Azar to its register of "foreign agents” at the end of February.
Azar’s mother, Larisa Yarkina, was released after questioning, according to human rights group OVD-Info, which said she was a witness in the case.
Russian prosecutors have aggressively pursued dozens of cases against journalists in exile since the invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, with several high-profile figures being handed harsh prison sentences in absentia.
On Tuesday, a court in Moscow sentenced Novaya Gazeta Europe’s editor-in-chief Kirill Martynov in absentia to six years in prison for organising the activities of a so-called “undesirable” organisation.
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office declared Novaya Gazeta Europe an “undesirable organisation” on 28 June 2023, a legal status that compels organisations to cease all activity and dissolve themselves in Russia, while also fining or imprisoning individuals with ties to the organisation in question. Other “undesirable organisations” in Russia include Transparency International, Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund.
