Week-ending 16 April 2021
This week Moscow police raided the offices of DOXA, an independent student-run online publication in connection with a video the magazine published in January related to unsanctioned rallies protesting the jailing of Aleksei Navalny. The homes of staff members Armen Aramyan, Vladimir Metyolkin, Natalya Tyshkevich, and Alla Gutnikova were also searched and they were detained for questioning by the Investigative Committee. Their laptops and telephones were seized. The four have been charged with ‘inciting minors to take part in illegal activities’ and if convicted face up to three years in prison. They have been placed under house arrest. Amnesty International condemned the authorities’ actions. The head of Amnesty International’s Moscow Office Natalia Zviagina said: “Silencing those brave enough to speak up – including students – shuts down the future of press freedom in Russia.”
Sources:
RFE/RL, 14 April 2021: The authorities are investigating four editors of the student magazine Doxa, accusing them of “engaging minors in actions that might be dangerous” over a January video related to unsanctioned rallies to protest the incarceration of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny. The magazine said that Armen Aramyan, Vladimir Metyolkin, Natalya Tyshkevich, and Alla Gutnikova were detained for questioning by the Investigative Committee after their homes and the magazine’s offices were searched on April 14. Police confiscated the journalists’ laptops and telephones, the magazine said, while Tyshkevich said police broke down her apartment door.
The Moscow Times, 14 April 2021: Russian police have raided independent student-run publication DOXA’s Moscow offices and charged leading staffers with inciting minors to illegally protest, the outlet said Wednesday. Russian authorities demanded earlier this year that DOXA take down its video explaining that students shouldn’t be afraid to voice their opinions at the Jan. 23 pro-Navalny protest and that it was unlawful for universities to expel students who attend. DOXA said it had deleted the video at the authorities’ request and maintains that it contained no calls to illegal activity.
Amnesty International, 14 April 2021: Responding to a wave of raids and searches in the office of Russian student magazine DOXA and in the apartments of its staff, Natalia Zviagina, Amnesty International’s Moscow Office Director, said: “Today the authorities have stooped to a new low as they tighten their grip on media perceived to be disloyal to the Kremlin. From slowly suffocating these outlets with economic penalties or forcing their owners to self-censorship, they have moved to an all-out attack on journalists and other media workers. Silencing those brave enough to speak up – including students – shuts down the future of press freedom in Russia.
The Moscow Times, 14 April 2021: Russian police have raided independent student news site DOXA’s Moscow offices and charged its editors with inciting minors to illegally protest, the outlet said Wednesday. Russian authorities demanded earlier this year that DOXA take down its video explaining that students shouldn’t be afraid to voice their opinions at a Jan. 23 pro-Navalny protest and that it was unlawful for universities to expel students who attend. DOXA said it had deleted the video at the authorities’ request and maintains that it contained no calls to illegal activity. Four DOXA editors now face up to three years in prison on the charges of “inciting minors to participate in illegal activities.”
CPJ, 15 April 2021: Russian authorities should immediately drop all charges against DOXA editors Armen Aramyan, Natalia Tyshkevich, Vladimir Metelkin, and Alla Gutnikova, and allow them to work freely and safely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Yesterday, law enforcement officers in Moscow raided the office of the independent student-run magazine DOXA and the apartments of the four editors, and arrested them, according tonewsreports and Mstislav Grivachev, a DOXA editor who was not detained, who spoke with CPJ in a phone interview. Officers took the journalists to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, where they were held for about two and a half hours and charged with “calling or otherwise involving minors into unlawful activities that might be dangerous,” according to those sources.
RFE/RL, 15 April 2021: A Moscow court has placed in de facto house arrest four editors of the student magazine Doxa who have been accused of “engaging minors in actions that might be dangerous” over a video related to unsanctioned rallies to protest the incarceration of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny. The Basmanny district court late on April 14 ordered Armen Aramyan, Vladimir Metyolkin, Natalya Tyshkevich, and Alla Gutnikova not to leave their homes between 11.59 p.m. and midnight for two months, giving them only one minute to be outside each day. The four were detained for questioning at the Investigative Committee after their homes and the magazine’s offices were searched over the video, which the magazine posted online in January.
