MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Moscow court docket positioned Konstantin Gabov, a Russian journalist, in pre-trial detention for 2 months on Saturday after state prosecutors accused him of collaborating within the actions of an extremist organisation.
Moscow’s Basmanny court docket stated in a press release that Gabov had ready video and photographic materials for a YouTube channel, “Navalny Reside”, run by allies of late opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic jail in February.
It didn’t present additional particulars. A spokeswoman for the Navalny motion didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Neither Gabov nor his lawyer might be reached for remark.
Gabov was proven on video footage pacing a courtroom cage along with his arms folded. He has labored for numerous international and Russian information retailers in recent times together with Reuters and German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
Gabov will stay in pre-trial detention till June 27, the assertion, launched by way of the official Telegram channel for the Russian capital’s courts, stated.
The cost he’s accused of carries a jail sentence of as much as six years. Unverified video circulated on Telegram confirmed two regulation enforcement officers bursting into his house with computerized rifles shouting at him to get on the ground.
The court docket assertion famous that Russian authorities have designated the Anti-Corruption Basis, the organisation run by Navalny’s allies which broadcasts on the YouTube channel from outdoors Russia, as a “international agent” and as an extremist organisation whose actions are outlawed inside Russia.
The identical assertion described Gabov as a producer for the Reuters information company.
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Reuters stated in its personal assertion: “Gabov is a contract journalist who previously often contributed to the Reuters information file. He doesn’t do any work for Reuters at the moment.”
“Journalists have to be free to report the information within the public curiosity with out harassment or hurt, wherever they’re,” Reuters stated.
German broadcaster Deutsche Welle stated in a narrative on its web site that he had labored as its correspondent in Moscow. Deutsche Welle’s press workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Russian media reported that in a search of his house, a letter dated April 11 of this yr was discovered which confirmed that Gabov had labored with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)’s Present Time community since July 1 2022.
Prague-based RFE, which is funded by the U.S. Congress and is itself designated “a international agent” by Russia on the grounds it will get international funding for exercise Moscow deems political, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
RFE says on its web site that its mission is to advertise democratic values by reporting uncensored information “in nations the place a free press is threatened and disinformation is pervasive”.
The Russian police didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The identical Moscow court docket positioned one other journalist, Antonina Favorskaya, a journalist for the SOTA on-line information outlet, which is designated as a international agent in Russia, in pre-trial detention on March 29 for 2 months in a case associated to her alleged hyperlinks to Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Basis. Favorskaya was reported by the RBK information outlet to have referred to as the allegations absurd.
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SOTA didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Russian authorities have banned Navalny’s motion as extremist and have solid the late politician as a U.S.-backed troublemaker out to foment revolution with a view to destabilise Russia.
Navalny’s allies have alleged that President Vladimir Putin ordered Navalny to be killed in February and have pledged to supply proof to again their declare. The Kremlin denies any state involvement in his loss of life.
The Wall Avenue Journal reported on Saturday, citing folks aware of the matter, that U.S. intelligence companies had concluded that Putin had most likely not ordered Navalny to be killed in February.
Many Russian journalists working for non-state retailers fled the nation after Moscow despatched troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and launched powerful new legal guidelines which mandated jail phrases for folks deemed to have discredited the Russian military or to be distributing what the authorities regard as faux information in regards to the army.
