A court in far eastern Russia sentenced a journalist to four years in prison Tuesday for cooperating with a foreign organization.
The Zabaikalsky Regional Court in Chita said Nika Novak, 24, had been found guilty of cooperating with a representative from a foreign media outlet “on whose instructions, for monetary compensation, she assisted in the preparation of false materials discrediting the Armed Forces of Russia and government agencies.”
The court said Novak’s actions were aimed at causing reputational damage to Russia and destabilizing the country. The human rights organization Memorial has described Novak as a political prisoner.
It's not clear why Novak was arrested, but she previously worked as a freelance reporter with U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, according to Siberia.Realities, which is part of RFE/RL.
She was also the editor-in-chief of Zab.ru, a local news site in Chita, and organized music and poetry evenings, according to Siberia.Realities. Chita is a small city in eastern Russia that’s closer to Japan than to Moscow.
Russia has used foreign agent laws to crack down on freedom of speech, including against RFE/RL.
RFE/RL was told by Russian authorities in 2017 to register as a foreign agent, but it has challenged Moscow’s use of foreign agent laws in the European Court of Human Rights. The organization has been fined millions of dollars by Russia.
In February, RFE/RL was outlawed in Russia as an undesirable organization.
Alsu Kurmasheva, a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist with U.S citizenship was convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military and was later released as part of a prisoner swap deal with the U.S.
According to OVD-Info, one of Russia’s leading rights groups that tracks political arrests, more than 1,000 people have been charged in criminal cases related to speaking or acting out against the war. But Memorial noted that Novak previously appeared to have made comments supporting Russia’s war on her social media pages.
Novak was arrested in Moscow in December 2023 but was sent more than 6,000km (3,728 miles) east to Chita for a trial behind closed doors.
In a post published on her behalf Tuesday on the social media platform Telegram, Novak described being taken to Chita from Moscow's notorious Lefortovo prison on a flight which lasted about seven hours. She also said she is not allowed to contact her mother, who is listed as a witness in the case, and suggested all her meetings and conversations are wiretapped.
“I feel some pressure, but I try not to lose heart," she wrote in the post.