RFE/RL President Jamie Fly has condemned legal attacks on journalists associated with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Russia, vowing that the “systematic harassment” will not stop the news organization from covering events in the country.
“The Kremlin’s systematic harassment of Yulia Paramonova, Andrei Novashov, and Svetlana Prokopyeva for their work as journalists for RFE/RL is deplorable,” he said in a statement on March 22.
“We will not be prevented from providing the Russian people with the truth at a moment they need it more than ever.”
The three journalists formerly or currently associated with RFE/RL have been detained or had their premises searched by authorities over the past four days as the Kremlin intensifies its crackdown on independent media outlets and reporters following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Paramonova, a freelance journalist who formerly worked with RFE/RL's North.Realities online project in the city of Kaliningrad, was summoned on March 21 to the prosecutor's office over her online articles.
Paramonova told RFE/RL that officers questioned her in relation to an extremism case, although she says they did not clarify any details concerning the matter.
The officers mentioned that she worked for a media outlet that had been officially added to "foreign agents" list, Paramonova said.
Russia has attempted to disrupt RFE/RL operations in the country by invoking its foreign agents law, which requires media outlets deemed to be “foreign agents” to mark themselves as such with a lengthy notice in large text for all written materials, an audio statement with all radio materials, and a text declaration with all video materials.
RFE/RL has refused to comply with this mandate or pay the millions of dollars in fines that have piled up and rejected the “foreign agent” label, saying it connotes that it is an enemy of the state.
"I think that they are working on a list of 'national traitors,' enemies of the people. My lawyer and I must be on that list," Paramonova said.
Meanwhile, several media outlets reported on March 21 that Novashov, a former correspondent at another RFE/RL online project, Siberia.Realities, was detained on unknown charges. Novashov was detained after his home was searched in the Siberian city of Kemerovo.
In the northwestern city of Pskov, police searched the homes of several politicians, activists, and journalists, including RFE/RL Russian Service contributor Svetlana Prokopyeva, as part of a probe related to criticism of the regional governor's announcement of the deaths of soldiers from the area during the war against Ukraine.
The opposition Yabloko party said that police searched the home of the leader of the party's regional branch, Lev Shlosberg, as well as the residences of Yabloko member Nikolai Kuzmin and his parents; Prokopyeva; the chief editor of the newspaper Pskovskaya Guberniya, Denis Kamalyagin; and activist Yekaterina Novikova.
RFE/RL President Condemns 'Systematic Harassment' Of Journalists As Detentions Intensify
Yulia Paramonova, a freelance journalist who formerly worked with RFE/RL in Kaliningrad, has been summoned to the prosecutor's office over her online articles. (file photo)