Media freedom in Russia

[17] The dangers to journalists in Russia have been well known since the early 1990s but concern at the number of unsolved killings soared after Anna Politkovskaya's murder in Moscow on 7 October 2006.

Since the early 1990s, a number of Russian reporters who have covered the situation in Chechnya, contentious stories on organized crime, state and administrative officials, and large businesses have been killed.

[24] On 7 October 2006, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, known for her criticisms of Russia's actions in Chechnya and the pro-Russia Chechen government, was shot in the lobby of her apartment building.

[25][26] International Press Institute reports selective use of regulations, politically motivated criminal investigations, journalist imprisonments, outlet shutdowns and aggressive harassments by security services.

[28] In October 2016, a group of Chechen journalists published an anonymous, dramatic appeal in The Guardian describing the intimidation and physical attacks they are experiencing under the Ramzan Kadyrov government and complete control the officials are enforcing over the media organisations in the republic.

"[45] However, political scientist Yevgenia Albats, in interview with Eduard Steiner, has disputed this assertion: "Today the directors of the television channels and the newspapers are invited every Thursday into the Kremlin office of the deputy head of administration, Vladislav Surkov to learn what news should be presented, and where.

Under the law, violators face a fine of up to 306,700 rubles ($9,500) or jail terms of up to five years for making public calls for action aimed against the country's territorial integrity.

[74] The regulations about extremist content are applied selectively: in October 2021 the "Republic" news website was fined by Roscomnadzor for mentioning the Taliban without making a mandatory remark about its "banned terrorist organization", while at the same time state media agency Rossiya Segodnya sent out an internal memo to its reporters to discontinue adding the same remark to their news, which was described by editor of "Republic" as "introduction of two parallel legal realities".

"[78] A number of people have been fined under a 2014 law against the "rehabilitation of Nazism" which includes criminalizing intentionally spreading what is deemed to be false information about the Soviet Union.

In April the founder of Vkontakte, Pavel Durov, announced he'd resign and leave the country due to FSB intimidation, after he refused to hand over the account data of Ukrainian activists.

[133] According to Alexey Kudrin, Russia's former Minister of Finance and current head of the Civil Initiative Committee, "in the regions, the number of independent media is progressively declining.

"[145] Indeed, while Rossiya TV (Channel Russia) was state-owned since its foundation in 1991, major shareholders of ORT and NTV (Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, respectively) sold their stocks to the government and Gazprom in 2000–2001.

For example, massive truck drivers protests across the country were never even mentioned in the First Channel in spite of wide coverage in local and independent media and requests of the viewers.

[160] On 23 October 2009, CEO of NMG-TV Vladimir Khanumyan in an interview promised no mass dismissals will take place; he also commented that "Information about Russia Today is generally some misunderstanding.

"[161] In 2016, leadership and top journalists of RBC media holding left the company following an investigation launched by the authorities into an alleged "fraud", which was widely associated with the non-mainstream coverage of political affairs and the government, including the latest Panama Papers publications on the wealth of Vladimir Putin.

[citation needed] The document also offered a number of case studies and examples on how journalists or members of Duma exposing cases of corruption or suspicious purchases (e.g. foreign property) by members of the administration should be silenced with "preventive political actions", involving release of compromising personal details about the whistleblowers, journalists and protesters or organizing "spontaneous" counter-pickets in support of the administration.

[169] When asked about media freedom in 2006 interview with NBC TV channel, Putin replied: "We have more than 3,500 television and radio companies here in Russia and state participation in them is decreasing with every passing year.

"[172]The policies adopted in that address answered that criticism the following way:"Ninth, parliamentary parties should have clear guarantees that their work will be covered by the state media.Tenth, freedom of speech should be backed up by technological innovation.

[175] Russian head of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs Konstantin Kosachev said in a 2005 interview that there were no differences between freedom of speech in Russia and Western countries in regards to the printed media: "there is an enormous amount of newspapers which write any sort of stuff."

[139] According to Vedomosti newspaper, in 2009 Rupert Murdoch's corporation failed to sell its three popular Russian radio stations because it didn't manage to find buyers for them.

[178] The Russian military intervention in Ukraine and the occupation of Crimea, in 2014, led to a reinforcement of propaganda and disinformation from state-owned media outlets, including by alteration or misidentification of images, stories distortion (e.g. Crucified boy reportage)[179] or invented from scratch.

Lenta.ru was warned by Roskomnadzor in March 2014 after publishing an interview with a member of Right Sector; the following day the owner replaced the editor with a pro-governmental one, and 40 employees resigned in protest.

In October 2014, Ekho Moskvy was warned by Roskomnadzor after airing first-hand testimonies of the fighting in eastern Ukraine, allegedly "justifying war crimes".

[30] In March 2016 Sergey Shoygu when speaking at a Russian media prize ceremony described information in general as "yet another weapon, yet another unit of the Armed Forces.

[186] Additionally, Roskomnadzor threatened to block access to the Russian Wikipedia in Russia over the article "Вторжение России на Украину (2022)" ("Russia's invasion of Ukraine (2022)"), claiming that the article contains "illegally distributed information", including "reports about numerous casualties among service personnel of the Russian Federation and also the civilian population of Ukraine, including children".

[187][188] On 4 March 2022, President Putin signed into law a bill introducing prison sentences of up to 15 years for those who publish "knowingly false information" about the Russian military and its operations, leading to some media outlets to stop reporting on Ukraine.

[192] Novaya Gazeta and its editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov, TV Rain and its CEO Natalya Sindeyeva filed an application against Russia (No.11884/22) with the European Court of Human Rights.

With the mainstream press increasingly toeing the Kremlin line, government restrictions have expanded to encroach upon other cultural spaces and modes of expression, including social activism, literature, art, and theater.While there are provisions in the Russian Constitution that guarantee freedom of speech and specifically forbid censorship, the practical execution of numerous legal acts and dependence of courts results in practically unlimited control of the government over what is published and where.

An important role in the censorship system is played by Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications), an institution that- according to PEN- "has reawakened people’s internal editors – the voice in your head that consciously or unconsciously makes you question what you are writing or publishing: does this cross the line?

In 2008, Amnesty International criticized the run-up to parliamentary and presidential elections as "a clampdown on the freedoms of assembly and expression", stating that "the authorities have violently dispersed some opposition demonstrations, while pro-government events have gone ahead without interference.