Distinguished Russian newspaper shuts down underneath stress from authorities

On the editorial places of work of Novaya Gazeta, they’re packing up and shutting down.

In all places I look there are cardboard packing containers and plastic luggage. Every part should go.

For thirty years this has been Russia’s most outstanding impartial newspaper, that includes investigative journalism fiercely essential of these in energy.

Now Novaya Gazeta is being evicted from its residence of three many years. The paper additionally says it has been blocked from receiving donations.

It is accusing the Russian authorities of killing it off.

“There are other ways to commit homicide,” journalist and co-founder of the paper Dmitry Muratov tells me. “They selected to strangle us.”

“First, they blocked our web sites and banned the paper version. Then they revoked our media licence. One after the other we have been declared ‘international brokers’, and our journalists have been attacked.

“Now we will not earn any more cash. The banks are refusing to just accept donations from our readers. In our nation there are political repressions occurring. These have reached us.”

In 2021, Muratov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts “to safeguard freedom of expression, a precondition for democracy and lasting peace”.

The award did not cease the Russian authorities from designating him a ‘international agent’ in 2023. The label is commonly used to punish critics of the federal government.

Through the years Novaya Gazeta had developed a status for fearless investigative reporting on topics akin to corruption, human rights violations and abuse of energy by officers and bureaucrats – harmful matters in Russia.

The paper says that six colleagues have been killed for “fulfilling their skilled and civic obligation”. These journalists embody Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot lifeless within the stairwell of her condo block twenty years in the past this month. She had written extensively on the wars in Chechnya.

As I stroll down a hall, I spot the workplace Anna had used. Following her killing, the room and all of the gadgets in it have been preserved and have become a museum in her reminiscence. Because the eviction order, a lot of the objects have already been eliminated. All that is left is the desk and, mendacity on high, a portrait of Anna.