The Kremlin has added 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov to its blacklist of foreign agents. The journalist and head of the historic Novaya Gazeta newspaper, which was closed by Vladimir Putin’s judiciary this year, was accused of “using foreign platforms to spread opinions that provoke negative attitudes towards Russia’s domestic and foreign policy.” His name joins the names of hundreds of Russian citizens who face punishment if they fail to comply with the draconian obligations of the Foreign Agents Act.
The director of Novaya Gazeta has not yet publicly commented on his accusations from the Kremlin. Yes, other persecuted people did it. The Telegram report by political dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for treason for participating in foreign forums, recalled that Muratov had said in his Nobel Prize speech that journalism was “an antidote to tyranny.”
In addition to the director, several journalists from independent media such as Dozhd and Echo Moscow as well as several dissidents and anti-war activists were also blacklisted this Friday.
The term “Foreign Agents” has the same name as the legislation of other countries, such as the United States. While these states simply require more detailed disclosure of income earned from abroad, Russia prohibits those who are prohibited from holding public office or participating in politics, as well as from receiving any public support.
In December last year, the law took another twist. The foreign agent designation no longer applies only to those who have received foreign funding, but to all citizens who authorities consider to be “vulnerable to being under foreign influence.” Therefore, non-compliance with the Kremlin’s postulates may be a reason for a ban.
This legislation makes life extremely difficult for the people on this blacklist. The rule also requires the conduct of “unscheduled inspections” of individuals who interact with foreign agents. In fact, the Justice Department has another list of people who were “affiliated” with organizations that were declared foreign agents. One of them, the memorial to the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner, founded in the last years of the USSR to expose Soviet crimes, was dismantled because she did not indicate in all her Instagram posts that she was called a foreign agent.
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The memorial was made possible by the opening of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The last president of the Soviet Union also supported the founding of Novaya Gazeta with money he received from his own Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
Although the newspaper ceased operations at the start of the war to prevent an end to the war, the Kremlin closed it in September last year for quoting two foreign agents in two articles without mentioning them. This was impossible: at the time of publication, one NGO did not yet have this label and the other had been removed from the list.
Some journalists from “Nóvaya Gazeta” left the country and founded another newspaper abroad that had no connection to the historical newspaper or to Muratov: “Nóvaya Gazeta Europa”. Russian authorities declared it an “undesirable organization” in June this year. This means they have the same status as an extremist or terrorist organization and are punished with a prison sentence if they have any contact with the environment.
The decision against Muratov coincides with the furor that the Nobel Foundation caused when it announced on Thursday that it was again inviting the ambassadors of Russia and Belarus to the awards gala in Stockholm after vetoing them last year. Two days after the announcement and in the face of criticism from home and abroad, the organizing committee decided to correct and maintain the veto on the legations of these two countries to which Iran is joining.
This controversy would have no impact on the Peace Prize that Muratov received two years ago, which is awarded and presented in Oslo (Norway), and whose ceremony envoys from these countries can still attend. In 2022, the Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, now imprisoned by Alexandr Lukashenko’s regime, and the Russian organization defending historical memory and human rights, Memorial, which was liquidated by the Kremlin with extreme use of the law, were recently given the Awarding foreign agents to unleash their war.
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