Novaya Gazeta Europe journalist Ilya Azar.
A Moscow court has ordered the arrest in absentia of Novaya Gazeta Europe journalist Ilya Azar on charges of organising the activities of an “undesirable” pro-democracy organisation, Azar confirmed on Saturday.
According to the case file, the decision was made on Friday by Judge Alexei Bobkov, who, according to a Novaya Gazeta Europe data investigation published in February, has previously made politically motivated rulings in over 100 administrative cases.
The offence is punishable by up to six years in prison. Azar, who now lives outside of Russia, was designated a “foreign agent” by Russia’s Justice Ministry in February and was placed on the Interior Ministry’s wanted list in mid-May.
The charges are linked to his involvement in the Deputies of Peaceful Russia movement, an association of anti-war local deputies advocating nonviolent political change, which Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office declared an “undesirable organisation” in August, effectively criminalising its activity.
In April, law enforcement raided the homes of Azar’s family members and associates, including former Moscow municipal deputies Sergey Vlasov, Igor Glek, Galina Filchenko and Nodari Khanashvili. The authorities claim the group published online materials encouraging people to join the movement, an act prosecutors argued constituted illegal recruitment.
Azar’s case is the latest in a series of efforts to prosecute independent journalists and activists living abroad since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 for their ties to civil society initiatives in Russia.
Several high-profile journalists have been handed harsh prison sentences in absentia, including Novaya Gazeta Europe’s editor-in-chief Kirill Martynov, who was sentenced to six years in prison in April on a similar charge.
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office declared Novaya Gazeta Europe an “undesirable organisation” in 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, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
