Statement in Support of "Novaya Gazeta"
Yesterday, one of Russia’s most important independent publications, Novaya Gazeta, announced that it was closing down. The closure was not voluntary: the newspaper had its licence revoked, was banned from publishing a print edition, had its website blocked, was designated a “foreign agent”, its journalists were detained, and its office was raided. It has now emerged that Novaya Gazeta is being evicted from the office it has occupied for 30 years, while its donation system has been shut down. The newspaper has been stripped of both its workplace and the financial means to continue operating. The editorial team puts it bluntly: “We have been killed.” The newspaper’s statement contains no appeal for help — only an announcement of its closure, making it clear that the resources for continuing the fight have been exhausted. The story of the symbol of the 1990s new journalism, of an enduring example to follow, of the newspaper that employed journalists of Anna Politkovskaya’s calibre and was headed by Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov, has come to a tragic end.
The closure of Novaya Gazeta once again demonstrates that the Russian authorities are unwilling to tolerate any criticism directed at them, and that, for them, freedom of speech is not a fundamental right of citizens but mere home decoration, to be put away in a box when it becomes an eyesore. The systematic destruction of the independent press has reached its final stage, where even deals with the authorities can no longer satisfy the state’s appetite: the only thing permitted is to obediently repeat everything the Kremlin says about politics, the economy, society and life in the country.
Novaya Gazeta gave its film about Anna Politkovskaya the title "How Anna Was Killed: A Life That Brought Enormous Benefit to the Country, and a Death That Dealt It Irreparable Harm". The same can be said of the newspaper itself: its fearless reporting — for which Novaya Gazeta journalists Igor Domnikov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasia Baburova and Natalia Estemirova paid with their lives — showed Russians a brutal but essential truth about our country. From its early days, when the newspaper condemned the war in Chechnya, to 2022, when journalist Elena Kostyuchenko went to the front to document the invasion, Novaya Gazeta stood for truth, for peace, and for people's right to know what was happening and to speak about it.
RDS is grateful to the newspaper’s journalists for many years of invaluable work and believes that the spirit of freedom that reigned at Novaya Gazeta for 30 years will not disappear. Nothing was in vain — the seeds of democracy sown for the future will yet sprout, and new journalism will return to Russia. This is something we must wait for, something we must believe in, and something we must fight for.
