Russian journalists sentenced on ‘extremism’ charges for alleged links to Navalny team

A court in Moscow sentenced four Russian journalists accused of “participating in an extremist organisation” to five years and six months in prison on Thursday over their alleged ties to late opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), independent news outlet Mediazona reported on Tuesday.

Antonina Favorskaya, a photo and video journalist with independent news outlet SOTAvision, is best known for making the last video recording of Navalny before his death in prison last February. She has already spent over a year in pretrial detention.

In a letter to colleagues dated 8 March, Favorskaya said that she had also been accused of “helping to organise Navalny’s funeral” having been initially detained by police in March last year after she visited the politician’s grave at Moscow’s Borisovsky Cemetery. Describing the accusations against her as “surreal”, Favorskaya said they could only be made by “those who are very much afraid and who only know how to take revenge”, SOTAvision reported.

Unlike those of her colleagues, Favorskaya’s closing statement to the court, which she made at a closed-door hearing on Thursday, has not been made public after failing to gain the approval of censors.

Fellow SOTAvision journalist Artyom Kriger was sentenced for his involvement with the FBK, which included making several videos for the organisation. Kriger’s family and friends have characterised the case against him as entirely fabricated.

“The prosecutors’ case is built on ‘participation in an extremist community’,” Kriger said in his closing statement. “I am reminded of Orwell’s words, ‘In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act’. But let me paraphrase him: In Putin’s Russia, being an honest and professional journalist instead of a shameful propagandist is a criminal and extremist act,” Kriger said.

Sergey Karelin, a reporter who has worked for the Associated Press and German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, among others, was found guilty of allegedly helping to produce material for the Navalny LIVE YouTube channel. Former Reuters journalist Konstantin Gabov, who was detained on the same day as Karelin, was also charged with producing content for Navalny LIVE.

“I’m in jail for doing my job, for believing journalism should be honest and unbiased, for loving my family and country,” Karelin wrote in his closing statement, which he dedicated to his daughter Mira, whom he hasn’t been allowed to see for 11 months. “I don’t know when I’m going to see her again, let alone hug her,” he said.

Gabov and Karelin, who are both being held in the same pretrial detention centre in Moscow, have both described the inhumane conditions of their detention in letters, with Gabov saying in October that he had been placed in an overcrowded cell for “especially dangerous” detainees where he was forced to sleep on the floor.

“I understand perfectly well what sort of country I live in. Russia has never changed throughout its history. There’s nothing new about the current situation,” Gabov said in his closing statement. “Russia was always different in that it managed to create problems for both its citizens and for neighboring countries. Independent journalism is being equated to extremism.”