Russian prosecutors on Thursday requested for almost 6-year jail sentences for every of four Russian journalists on prices of working for an anti-corruption group based by the late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny that was designated by authorities as extremist.
Antonina Favorskaya, Artyom Kriger, Sergey Karelin and Konstantin Gabov have been arrested final yr and charged with involvement with an extremist group, which they’ve rejected.
Prosecutors requested the court docket to condemn every of them to five years and 11 months throughout closing arguments at Moscow’s Nagatinsky District Court docket.
Their closed-doors trial is a part of the Russian authorities’ unrelenting crackdown on dissent that has reached an unprecedented scale after Moscow despatched troops into Ukraine in February 2022. The authorities have focused opposition figures, impartial journalists, rights activists and unusual Russians crucial of the Kremlin, jailing lots of and prompting 1000’s to flee the nation to keep away from prosecution.
The 4 journalists have been accused of working with Navalny’s Basis for Preventing Corruption, which was designated as extremist and outlawed in 2021 in a transfer broadly seen as politically motivated.
Navalny was President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest and most outstanding foe and relentlessly campaigned towards official corruption in Russia. In February 2024, Navalny died in a distant Arctic jail whereas serving a 19-year sentence on various prices, together with working an extremist group, which he had rejected as politically pushed.
Favorskaya and Kriger labored with SotaVision, an impartial Russian information outlet that covers protests and political trials. Gabov is a contract producer who has labored for a number of organizations, together with Reuters. Karelin, a contract video journalist, has performed work for Western media shops, together with The Related Press.
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