The Moscow City Court, in a February 7 meeting, revoked the license of Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian publication that had been published from 1993 until the start of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Additionally, New Story-Gazeta’s license launched after the invasion has come to an end.
The City Court confirmed solutions of the lower court of the Basmanny district of Moscow to revoke the licenses of the publications. The reason was formal reasons: the newspaper allegedly did not provide Roskomnadzor with an updated version of the charter in 2016, “Rasskaz-gazeta”, according to the department, has not been published for more than a year . On this subject informed edition of the publication “Novaya Gazeta. Europe”.
Commenting on the Basmanny court’s decision in September, journalists from Novaya Gazeta issued a statement saying the court had deprived readers of the right to receive information.
“Today our colleagues, already killed by this state for the performance of their professional duty, were killed again – Igor Domnikov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, Natalya Estemirova, Orkhan Dzhemal”, says the press release.
The newspaper’s editor and Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov then called the court’s decision “insignificant”, “tailored” and “political”.
In March, Novaya Gazeta suspended its website and print publication following two warnings from Roskomnadzor. After that, part of the journalists left Russia and started the publication Novaya Gazeta Europe, with an editorial office in Riga. In September, the Supreme Court revoked a separate media license from the Novaya Gazeta website. The websites of all publications mentioned in the news are blocked in Russia by Roskomnadzor.
