Russian authorities “deliberately targeted” journalists for beatings during the protests in support of dissident activist Alexei Navalny, according to an international media organization.
The mistreatment of the journalists was part of an apparent censorship policy as Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to preserve the perception of political power in the face of nationwide protests against Navalny’s arrest. The rough enforcement tactics buttressed one of Putin’s chief advantages in the feud with Navalny, who has released YouTube videos humiliating the Kremlin chief with corruption allegations, while the central government dominates conventional media platforms.
“The police deliberately targeted certain media, going so far as to try to enter a private apartment to cut off a video feed of the demonstrations,” said Jeanne Cavelier, Reporters Without Borders’ lead official for Eastern Europe.
“It has some limits of its outreach,” a Baltic official said while discussing Navalny’s chronicles about Putin’s wealth. “He has to get on television. … [If] TV would start to show [the video], it would be a snowball effect; but, of course, it’s unrealistic to think that because all TV is controlled.”
The latest video has been viewed more than 92 million times since its Jan. 19 release, a publication timed as an apparent retaliation for Putin’s decision to have Navalny arrested upon his return from Germany. The anti-corruption video, which Navalny opens by once again accusing Putin of ordering Russian intelligence officers to poison the dissident with a chemical weapon, spurred thousands of Russian citizens into the streets of cities across the country, bearing placards declaring that “Putin is a thief” and calling for Navalny’s release.
Kremlin officials justified the arrest of Navalny allies who endorsed the protests on the grounds that the rallies were “unauthorized.” Putin himself compared the protesters to “terrorists.” He justified the term by likening the protests to the mob of Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in an attempt to prevent the counting of electoral votes, faulting the protesters as well for bringing children with them.
“Least of all should underage children be pushed to the front,” Putin said. “This is what terrorists do.”
Putin’s aides are trying to dispute outside organizations’ estimates of how many protesters turned out last weekend.
“Now, many people will say that a lot of people attended unauthorized rallies. No, there were few people,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted Tuesday. “If you compare the figures, you will understand how few people are involved in the protests.”
An estimate from Reuters suggests that more than 40,000 people turned out in Moscow alone, while the Russian government reports a crowd one-tenth that size. “OVD Info, an independent NGO that monitors rallies, said about 3,100 people had been detained, more than 1,200 of them in Moscow alone,” the BBC noted.
Russian officials tried to stifle independent media coverage of the protests, according to Reporters Without Borders, which estimates that 50 journalists were detained and provided several specific examples. “Police cut the power supply to a Moscow apartment from which” two journalists working for Dozhd, an independent Russian television channel, were conducting a broadcast; the crew was arrested, as was a third Dozhd journalist in St. Petersburg.
“In Moscow, riot police hit Elizaveta Kirpanova, a reporter for the independent triweekly Novaya Gazeta, with their batons for several minutes, dealing some of the blows to her head, although she was clearly identifiable by her ‘press’ vest and badge, while a baton blow smashed the camera lens of her photographer colleague Viktoria Odisonova,” the Reporters Without Borders bulletin added.
Russian officials have used their public pronouncements on the protests, particularly the Kremlin’s claim that U.S. intelligence officials are orchestrating the outcry, to double as veiled threats, according to Western observers.
“That’s really for a Russian audience, to say that the Kremlin really regards Navalny as an enemy and those who support him are going to be treated as such,” said Catholic University professor Michael Kimmage, a nonresident fellow at the German Marshall Fund and an expert on U.S.-Russia relations. “So, if you’re a 25-year-old Muscovite and you’re thinking about whether you want to go out into the streets and perhaps be photographed there … you maybe think twice about it because you could lose your job or you can end up in trouble.”
Putin’s heavy-handed efforts to control the information about the protests warrants Western sanctions, according to press freedom activists.
“The aim was clearly to prevent them from showing the scale of support for a government opponent,” said Cavelier, the Reporters Without Borders official. “We call on the Russian authorities to end this blatant obstruction of the freedom to inform, and we urge the OSCE representative on freedom of the media, Teresa Ribeiro, to condemn the violence and arbitrary arrests. We also call on the European Union to adopt new sanctions against Russian officials.”
The weekend’s protests and the treatment of Navalny and his allies was one topic of the first phone call between new President Biden and Putin when they spoke on Tuesday for the first time since the new American leader took office.
