The Russian prosecutor general’s office on Wednesday declared The Moscow Times, an online newspaper popular among Russia’s expatriate community, an “undesirable organization.”
The designation arises in the middle a repression in critical Media and the opposition. This means the newspaper must suspend any work in Russia and subjects any Russian who cooperates with the newspaper to up to five years in prison.
It is a more severe measure than the Designation of “foreign agent” applied to the media outlet in November, which subjects individuals and organizations to greater financial scrutiny and requires that any public materials prominently include a notice of having been declared a foreign agent.
The Moscow Times has already moved its editorial operations out of Russia in 2022 following the passage of a law that imposes harsh sanctions for material considered discrediting the Russian military and its forces. war in Ukraine.
It publishes in English and Russian, but its Russian site was blocked in Russia several months after the Ukrainian war began.
In an editors’ note about the decision, the newspaper said that “The Moscow Times’ labeling as ‘undesirable’ is the latest of many efforts to suppress our reporting on the truth in Russia and its war in Ukraine… This designation It will make it even more difficult for us to do our jobs, putting journalists and intermediaries inside Russia at risk of criminal prosecution and making sources even more hesitant to talk to us.
“We refuse to give in to this pressure. “We refuse to be silenced,” the newspaper stated.
The publication began in 1992 as a daily print newspaper distributed free of charge in restaurants, hotels and other places popular with expatriates, whose presence in Moscow was increasing following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It later reduced its print edition to weekly and then went online only in 2017.
Russia in recent years has methodically led people and organizations critical of the Kremlin, calling many “foreign agents” and some “undesirables.” Other media declared undesirable include independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, whose editor Dmitri Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize and Meduza online news site.
Russia has also jailed prominent opposition figures, including an anti-corruption activist. Alexei Navalny, who was of President Vladimir Putin most persistent internal enemy, and dissidents Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin.
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