
The Moscow Times: Russia on Saturday reported 21,000 new coronavirus cases and 797 pandemic deaths.
The Moscow Times: Russian police Saturday detained a handful of journalists in central Moscow protesting against the government’s crackdown on independent media outlets. At least nine people, most journalists from independent outlets, including TV Dozhd, The Bell, Takie Dela and Romb, were detained Saturday afternoon in Moscow, the independent Meduza website reported.
Amnesty International: Reacting to the news that Russia’s Ministry of Justice has branded Dozhd TV, one of the last remaining independent television channels in Russia, Vazhnye Istorii, an investigative online media organization, and seven journalists as “foreign agents,” Natalia Zviagina, Amnesty International’s Moscow Office Director, said: “These latest designations further prove that the Kremlin is unleashing its repressive “foreign agents” law against independent media and decimating unbiased reporting and investigative journalism in the country. The Russian authorities’ blatant attempt to classify independent media as “foreign agents” must end. This stifling “foreign agents” legislation must be abolished immediately.”