ATTACKS ON MEDIA WORKERS IN RUSSIA IN 2024

1/ KEY FINDINGS

The year 2024 was yet another of systemic and multi-level pressure being brought to bear on journalists, bloggers and media workers, both in Russia itself and on Russians in exile. The main instruments of repression remained the same as before: criminal cases, administrative fines, inclusion in the registers of "foreign agents" and "undesirable organisations", blocking and cyber-attacks.

In Russia, 806 cases of attacks/threats were identified and analysed in the course of the study for 2024 against professional and citizen media workers, activists, editorial offices of traditional and online media outlets, as well as against Russian journalists abroad. Data for the study were collected using content analysis from open sources in Russian and English. A list of the main sources is provided in Annex 1.

Crimes against Ukrainian journalists committed on the territory of Ukraine and the ongoing repression against Crimean journalists are reviewed in separate reports (“ON MEDIA WORKERS IN CRIMEA IN 2024” [1] and “ATTACKS ON MEDIA WORKERS IN UKRAINE IN 2024” [2]).

Key Findings:

1. Pressure on Western journalists in Russia has increased (criminal cases, entry bans, blocking of foreign media). Two American media workers held in pre-trial detention (Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva) were convicted by Russian courts, but were later released as part of an exchange for Russian GRU officers imprisoned in the West.
2. There was an increase in criminal prosecutions of Russian journalists and bloggers, including those in absentia. Several media workers (such as Roman Ivanov and Sergei Mikhailov) were sentenced to long prison terms. Another criminal case was brought against Kirill Martynov for "arranging the operation of an undesirable organisation".
3. The list of journalists labelled as "foreign agents" has been significantly expanded, and new norms have been introduced that affect their rights and deal a painful blow to the business models of the media and bloggers. The persecution of "foreign agents" has become more efficient: the list of who they are is updated weekly, and a number of journalists have become defendants in criminal cases for "failing to fulfil the duties of a foreign agent".
4. Prosecutions have increased for anyone having contact with banned media or "undesirable organisations", be it as contributors, speakers, distributors or even consumers of their content.
5. The list of media considered “undesirable”, primarily regional media outlets, continued to grow. At the federal level, a noticeable loss was the closure of the Sobesednik editorial office.
6. Radical restrictions on YouTube's operations have begun in Russia.