The increasing repression of everything opposition or independent in Russia has claimed another victim: VTimes, an investigative journalism site, which closes on June 12.
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VTimes saw the light of day only last summer, but has already been forced to cease its activities. Three weeks ago, the Russian Ministry of Justice declared the Dutch foundation ‘October 2’ – the owner of the website with media entrepreneur Derk Sauer as chairman – to be a ‘foreign agent’. In plain language: a suspicious organization that has links with foreign countries.
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Until recently, the predicate only applied to aid clubs. But since the beginning of this year, Russian-language media have also been stuck with it. In April, the ministry also gave the popular news site Meduza.io, largely operating from Latvia, same stamp. The editors-in-chief challenged that verdict in vain: on Friday the judge indicated that it would uphold it.
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Whoever is declared a foreign agent has to submit his income to the Ministry of Justice and falls prey to endless bureaucracy. In addition, the affected media must indicate with each article that it comes from a foreign agent. As a result, they become ‘infected’, because anyone who comes into contact with a foreign agent is also suspicious. The result is that advertisers collectively fail and interlocutors of the media concerned are afraid to talk to the journalists.
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The government has three channels for feedback: an independent judiciary, free elections and independent media. All three are now destroyed
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High Quality Unchecked Media
According to Aleksandr Goebski, one of the founders of VTimes, it became impossible to continue working, he said in an interview with Meduza on Thursday. ,,There was a variant to register us in Russia (VTimes is now registered in the Netherlands, ed.) and to change the brand name. But the name would remain tainted,” Goebski said. If VTimes does go ahead, the journalists risk jail time, he says.
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To Meduza, Goebski describes how Kafkaesk such a process proceeds. According to him, the Ministry of Justice does not have to show the court the proof that a medium receives money or advice from abroad, for example. “The judge then says: we believe the ministry and not you. Because you are a foreign agent.”
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Goebski emphasizes that VTimes is not an opposition publication and that it only wants to conduct objective, independent journalism. Advertising revenues were fine after almost a year. “We even had advertising contracts with state-owned companies,” says the journalist. According to Goebski, the Russian government is not at all waiting for ‘uncontrolled high-quality media’. “This is terrible for the country as a whole and also for the authorities themselves,” he told Meduza. “The government has three channels for feedback: an independent judiciary, free elections and independent media. All three have now been destroyed.”
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The founding of VTimes came about last year, after the editor-in-chief of the business newspaper Knowledge (also co-founded by Derk Sauer) was replaced by a Kremlin loyal successor. The almost entire editorial staff left the newspaper in protest at the time and some of the journalists directed VTimes on.
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