(20 Aug 2021) Russian authorities on Friday took action against a top independent TV channel, intensifying pressure on critical media ahead of next month's parliamentary election.
The Justice Ministry announced that the Dozhd (Rain) TV channel and the Vazhnye Istorii (Important Stories) investigative online outlet have been added to the list of "foreign agents," along with seven of its journalists.
The label implies closer government scrutiny and carries a strong pejorative connotation that could discourage potential viewers.
Dozhd's head Natalya Sindeyeva denounced the move as unfair, saying the TV channel has been fully transparent about its funding and published its financial documents.
"On the one hand I knew that this would happen sooner or later because the circle had been tightening and we understood that we were probably next," Sindeyeva told The Associated Press.
"At the same time, as any normal person I hope for the best and inside I couldn't accept that events would turn like this, chiefly because we're simply not a foreign agent," she added.
Dozhd has been sharply critical of Russian authorities' crackdown on dissent and regularly carried live reports from opposition protests.
It has extensively covered the poisoning and the imprisonment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the criminal cases launched against his allies.
In June, the Kremlin purged Dozhd from the pool of journalists covering Putin, charging that it was supporting unsanctioned demonstrations during a wave of opposition protests earlier this year against Navalny's arrest - an accusation the channel rejected.
Navalny, the most outspoken political foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, fell ill on a domestic flight over Siberia on August 20, 2020, and was flown for treatment to Germany, where officials determined that he was poisoned with a Soviet-designed nerve agent.
He blamed the attack on the Kremlin, an accusation that Russian authorities reject.
Navalny was arrested in January upon returning to Moscow from Germany and handed a 2 1/2-year prison sentence in February for violating the terms of a suspended sentence from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that he dismissed as politically motivated.
In the following months, authorities unleashed a sweeping crackdown on Navalny's groups and associates.
In June, a court outlawed Navalny's Foundation for Fighting Corruption and a network of his regional offices as extremist organisations.
The verdict carried long prison terms for those associated with it and was widely seen as part of efforts to bar Kremlin critics from running in the September 19 parliamentary election.
The Justice Ministry acted under a law that is used to designate as "foreign agents" non-governmental organisations and individuals who receive funding from abroad and engage in activities loosely described as political.
The "foreign agent" designation requires those who receive it to add a lengthy statement to their reports, social media posts and audiovisual materials specifying that the content was created by an outlet "performing the functions of a foreign agent."
Sindeyeva said that the move would make Dozhd's work more difficult and could discourage some companies from extending their advertising contracts and make some newsmakers more reluctant to come on air.
"They want to shut us down, but we will try to continue working so as to show that there can be a free media in Russia. To show that you can disobey, stay true to your principles, and not compromise," Sindeyeva said.
VTimes shut down after that, while Meduza launched a crowd-funding campaign.
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