Moscow tightens its grip on information in Russia

Russia put heavy criminal penalties on Friday for the distribution of “misleading information about the army” and blocked the media, an illustration of the internal turn of the screw that accompanies the invasion of Ukraine.

These measures allow the authorities to strengthen their arsenal to control the story they tell the Russian population of the invasion of Ukraine, presented as a limited operation aimed at protecting Russian speakers from a “genocide”.

The lower house of parliament, the Duma, unanimously adopted an amendment which provides for various penalties of up to 15 years in prison for the dissemination of information aimed at “discrediting” the armed forces.

A separate amendment, also adopted on Friday, also provides sanctions for “calls to impose sanctions on Russia”, which faces harsh Western retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine.

These texts, which apply both to the media and to Russian and foreign individuals, were approved by the Upper House on Friday evening. They only need the president’s signature to enter into force.

In a sign of the importance for Moscow to maintain control, the Speaker of the Upper House of Parliament, Valentina Matvienko, accused the West of having “launched an information war against Russia unprecedented in its scale and aggressiveness. “.

Independent media targeted

The authorities also increased pressure on the few still independent media that had managed to work in recent years despite a hostile climate.

the Novaya Gazeta, whose editor-in-chief is the last Nobel Peace Prize winner, announced on Friday evening that it was removing some of its Ukraine-related content to avoid sanctions. « The law penalizing the “false news” on the actions of the Russian armed forces has entered into force […] we are forced to remove a lot of content. But we have decided to continue working,” the newspaper said.

On Friday, media regulator Roskomnadzor announced that it had restricted access to the BBC, Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW), to the independent Russian site Medusa (based in Riga), at Radio Svoboda, Russian branch of RFE/RL, at Voice of America and other unnamed news sites.

The day before, the emblematic radio station Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) had announced its dissolution and the independent television channel Dojd the suspension of its activity, after the blocking of their sites.

The information site Znak followed this example and also announced on Friday the cessation of his work “due to the large number of restrictions that have recently appeared in the functioning of the media in Russia”.

The website The Villagea reference on the cultural agenda in Moscow, has for its part taken the decision to relocate its activity to Warsaw, in Poland.

Searches at Memorial

These all-out closures and relocations come after a particularly tough year for the independent media, the political opposition and civil society.

A number of publications and journalists have indeed been given the label of “foreign agent”, which subjects them in particular to cumbersome administrative procedures and legal action in the event of even minimal breaches.

The main opponent of the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny, was imprisoned after narrowly surviving poisoning, and his movement was dismantled.

And justice pronounced in December the dissolution of the emblematic NGO Memorial, pillar of the defense of human rights and guardian of the memory of millions of victims of crimes of the USSR, a decision confirmed on appeal Monday.

Friday, Memorial announced that searches were taking place in its premises in Moscow, raising fears of an effective closure of the NGO.

The migrant aid NGO Civic Assistance also said on Friday that the police were searching its premises.

The motives for these police operations were unknown.

Protesters arrested

In addition, according to the NGO OVD-Info, more than 8,000 people have been arrested in Russia for demonstrating, particularly in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, against the invasion of Ukraine since February 24, the day it was launched.

Faced with voices opposing this intervention, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that it was “not the time to divide, it is the time to unite. And unite around our president.

If the all-out repression first affects the Russians, voices also attack foreign organizations.

Valéri Fadeïev, president of the Human Rights Council at the Kremlin, also accused the foreign media of spreading false information on the conflict in Ukraine.

“We started a project […] to counter the massive amount of fake news coming out of Ukraine and Western countries,” he said.

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