Russia has thrown four journalists associated with the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny in jail, sentencing each to 5 1/2 years in prison.
Antonina Favorskaya, Konstantin Gabov, Sergey Karelin, and Artyom Kriger were all found guilty of involvement with an extremist group. They were accused of working for the Anti-Corruption Foundation, an nonprofit organization founded by Navalny. The organization was designated a foreign agent by the Russian Ministry of Justice in 2019, then given an extremist designation in 2021, outlawing it.
Gabov is a freelance video journalist along with Karelin, the latter of whom worked with Western media outlets such as the Associated Press. Favorskaya and Kriger worked with the anti-Kremlin SotaVision, an outlet designated a “foreign agent” in 2023, sending its leaders into exile.
Favorskaya filmed the last video of Navalny before his death last year.
Speaking to reporters while in the defendants’ cage, Favorskaya said she was being punished for helping organize Navalny’s funeral.
Gabov said the accusations against him were baseless.
“I understand perfectly well … what kind of country I live in. Throughout history, Russia has never been different, there is nothing new in the current situation,” Gabov said in a statement to Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian newspaper. “Independent journalism is equated to extremism.”
Karelin said he was being punished for doing street interviews for Popular Politics, a YouTube channel founded by Navalny’s associates.
“Remorse is considered to be a mitigating circumstance. It’s the criminals who need to have remorse for what they did. But I am in prison for my work, for the honest and impartial attitude to journalism, FOR THE LOVE for my family and country,” he wrote in remarks obtained by the outlet.
Kriger also denounced his prosecution as baseless, saying he was added to a list of extremists “only because I have conscientiously carried out my professional duties as an honest, incorruptible and independent journalist for 4 1/2 years.”
RUSSIAN JOURNALIST WHO COVERED NAVALNY TRIALS DETAINED ON CHARGES OF EXTREMISM
“Don’t despair guys, sooner or later it will end and those who delivered the sentence will go behind bars,” he said after the verdict.
Kriger’s uncle, Mikhail Kriger, was arrested in 2022 after liking a Facebook comment expressing the urge “to hang” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
