Wrong as Rain: Russia Declares More Media, Journalists, Foreign Agents

With independent media in Russia being declared “Foreign Agents”, TV Rain (Dozhd) Chief Editor Tikhon Dzyadko is taking drastic measures against his station’s broadcasters being targeted.

“We are being told that we are the enemy,” Dzyadko told the British newspaper The Guardian. “And I am not an enemy and I am not an agent. It’s a spit in the face,” he said, adding that he will appeal the designation and push on with their work.

TV Rain is Russia’s only television channel covering national and foreign news without state censorship, its coverage of the political opposition seen likely the reason it was added to a growing list of independent media outlets declared Foreign Agents.

Being a journalist in Russia has been dangerous for decades – being harassed, jailed, and killed – their plight overlooked before the murder of reporter and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 got the world's attention.

Outrage over that killing didn't make it easier to be a reporter in a country where Vladimir Putin has ruled since becoming President in 2000, de facto during the 2008-12 period when his ally, Dmitry Medvedev, was President.

Criticizing Putin has carried the price of fear, and now his regime has further tightened control over what can be reported, or not with changes to the Foreign Agent law that critics said could mean anyone being designated to be muzzled.

It effectively blacklists media outlets, scares off funding and advertising and leaves reporters facing possible jail time for their work, said the Vienna-based International Press Institute in a report.

IPI urged condemnation but didn't get it, apart from media groups swiveling between denunciations of a siege of assaults on journalists around the world and in the European Union.

The EU, dependent on Russia for more than 60 percent of its energy, has been reluctant to provoke Putin too much, less now that prices are soaring, giving him the upper hand even more, as he uses the law as a cudgel, undeterred by criticism or cajoling,

Nadezda Azhgikhina, Director of PEN Moscow, told IPI the addition of Dozhd TV to the list was the clearest illustration yet that “independent voices are not welcome It is very bad for journalism in Russia and for journalists as a whole.”

Investigative platform Vazhnye Istorii (IStories), its Editor-in-Chief and five journalists were added to the list, while journalists who protested outside the headquarters of the FSB security agency in Moscow against the Dozhd TV designation were detained.

“The labelling of Dozhd TV and iStories represents the most outrageous use to date of this Soviet-style ‘Foreign Agent’ law by Russian authorities and another blatant attack on what remains of independent media within the country,” IPI Deputy Director Scott Griffen said.

WEAPONIZING THE LAW

A number of publications, starved by advertising pullout and fears their reporters will be prosecuted have closed, and more are likely to follow, the report also said.

Since April, 10 media outlets and 20 journalists have been targeted by the state in updating of the Foreign Agent Law, which means those designated must disclose funding sources and put a disclaimer in capital letters for every text they publish warning viewers and readers the content comes from a foreign agent.

Among them was the site Proekt (Project,) known for investigating wealth and power, its founder and Chief Editor Roman Badanin forced out of positions at independent newsrooms because of political pressure, The New Yorker reported.

“We've never seen such a crackdown on independent journalism in Russia since the end of the Soviet Union, 30 years ago,” Jeanne Cavelier, Head of the Eastern Europe & Central Asia Desk for the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders told Blueprint for Free Speech.

She said that the Foreign Agents Law updating has been a particularly tough tool being used on reporters and media outlets, a way to control them legally.

“Even if in general, journalists can be jailed or harassed because of deliberately vague laws, which potentially target every citizen, the pressure has never been so high,” she said.

Sofia Rusova, Co-chair of the Journalists’ and Media Workers’ Union (JMWU) in Russia, told IPI that a journalist being put on the Foreign Agents list effectively means a ban from the profession.

The list has been expanded to also include the names of multiple investigative reporters digging into state corruption, the criteria so vague that almost any form of contact with foreign entities will bring a stigma.

Justice Ministry spokesman Roman Tsyganov said journalists could be added if they go on press tours funded by a foreign organization, receive money to travel to an international conference, receive a reporting award, or if they receive money from relatives or friends abroad.

“We have seen the deterioration of the press freedom situation there for as long as Putin has been in power, but the crackdown on independent media has intensified,” especially in the lead-up to parliamentary elections, Gulnoza Said, Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator for the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists told Blueprint.

The atmosphere is so bad that the noted investigative journalism group Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) halted operations in Russia to protect its journalists.

"We will not stop reporting on the kleptocracy but increasingly there is little gained from being there and great risks to the freedom of employees. We will work with journalists outside," OCCRP Co-founder and editor Drew Sullivan tweeted.

Said noted that Putin's targets are especially investigative outlets and said the Russian leader has turned from more aggressive tactics to the Foreign Agent law to try to shut down his critics, fewer journalist killed in recent years.

“The Russian government learned how to use - or rather manipulate - the international system … Russian officials, including Putin, think that the direct murder of a journalist will bring the international community's attention to Russia, give it a 'bad press'” he doesn't want, added Said.

“They know that even Western governments, as pragmatic as they can be in their business dealings with Russia, will not stay silent on such atrocious acts as journalists' murders,” she said.

“They have been using the law enforcement agencies and a pocket judiciary system to bring various charges against journalists to silence them. Whenever they don't have any grounds for prosecution, they amend laws and create such grounds, as happened with the 'Foreign Agent' legislation,” she also said.