The Information Culture Project refused to cooperate with the Important Stories journalist because of her status as a “foreign agent”

The Information Culture Project refused to cooperate with the journalist because of her status as a “foreign agent.” She herself spoke about this on Facebook.

According to Marokhovskaya, Information Culture invited her to be a mentor at a hackathon in December in Yekaterinburg. Today, August 30, the project did not sign a contract with the journalist.

“Their lawyers believe that then they themselves run the risk of becoming foreign agents. This is how my “wonderful” colleagues were the first to show me what it means to be a foreign agent in Russia: they will shun you,” the journalist wrote.

Director of Information Culture Ivan Begtin responded to Marokhovskaya in comments that the project works “only in the legal framework with all its restrictions.”

“Our lawyers assess the risks that the organization faces or may face. We work in difficult conditions, under pressure that we do not write about publicly. Thank you again for initially agreeing to participate in the hackathon, we are also unpleasant about this whole situation with foreign agents, which many of our friends were recognized as, once again sorry for the misunderstanding,” Begtin.

"Information Culture" is engaged in open data research. “We strive for the state and society to share the ideology of openness, have competencies in the field of open data, and understand the tools for collecting and processing such data,” says the project’s website.

Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov has repeatedly emphasized that adding journalists to the media register as “foreign agents” is “not equivalent to a work ban.”

Six correspondents of “Important Stories”, including Marokhovskaya, and the Dozhd TV channel were recognized as “foreign agents” on August 20. After this, journalists from a dozen Russian publications demanded that this decision be reconsidered. The Kremlin believes that the demand to repeal the law on “foreign agents” is “not entirely correct rhetoric.”