Was at Navalny's grave

Russian journalist arrested after cemetery

The journalist Antonina Favorskaya in court

(Bild: ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The Kremlin is taking ever tougher action against uncomfortable reporters in its country. Now the handcuffs have clicked for journalist Antonina Faworskaja from the medium "SotaVision", from which krone.at often quotes.

After years of reporting on the now deceased Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, Favorskaya has now been arrested in Russia. The Basmanny Court in Moscow justified this by saying that she was allegedly involved with Navalny's anti-corruption foundation, which Russia banned some time ago as an "extremist organization".

However, both her medium "SotaVision" and Navalny's team reject this as a pretext to silence the critical journalist. She faces up to six years in prison.

Opposition not surprised
Contrary to what the indictment claims, Favorskaya never published material for the Navalny Fund FBK, wrote Navalny's former spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh on the platform X (formerly Twitter). "A journalist is accused of journalistic activity," she added. "This is not a surprise, but what a darkness." Since the beginning of the war of aggression against Ukraine more than two years ago, Russia has also been taking increasingly repressive action against critical voices in its own country.

According to her media outlet, Favorskaya had reported on almost all of the trials that continued against Navalny even after his imprisonment at the beginning of 2021. After his death on February 16, she also visited the opposition politician's grave in Moscow several times and documented how people continued to flock to lay flowers for days after the funeral.

Security officers act with fullforce
 After one of these cemetery visits, she was detained by police officers in a café on March 17 and initially placed in a holding cell for ten days for allegedly resisting police officers. On the day of her planned release, Favorskaya was then arrested again - this time on charges of involvement in the Navalny organization.

Several of the journalist's colleagues and a representative of another media outlet critical of the Kremlin were also detained. The latter later reported that he had been beaten by security officers and threatened with sexualized violence, according to the civil rights organization OVD-Info.