Nobel Prize winner Dmitry Muratov labeled as foreign agent by Russia

Russia added Noble Prize laureate and prominent journalist Dmitry Muratov to its list of foreign agents, Moscow announced on Friday. This list is maintained to stifle critics of the Kremlin.

Last March Muratov’s, independent publication ‘Novaya Gazeta’ newspaper stopped publishing in Russia after the Kremlin imposed tight controls on media covering Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Muratov used foreign platforms to disseminate opinions aimed at forming a negative attitude towards the foreign and domestic policy of the Russian Federation,” Russia’s justice ministry said to justify the decision. The ministry also accused Dmitry Muratov of creating and distributing content from other foreign agents.

This move is a part of a larger crackdown on respected civil society institutions that has accelerated with Moscow’s assault on Ukraine. Many Kremlin critics and civil society groups are on the “foreign agent” list.

The list is a label, which is reminiscent of the term “enemies of the people” of the Soviet era, adds heavy administrative constraints, and requires sources of funding to be disclosed. Accordingly, they also compel foreign agents to mark all publications with a tag that puts them and the people sharing their content at risk of heavy fines.

The designation is part of an array of legislation the Kremlin uses to silence critics, along with the harsher “undesirable organisation” tag. Most high-profile opponents are behind bars or in exile.

Nobel Prize winner, Dmitry Muratov

Dmitry Muratov co-won the Nobel Prize in 2021 in recognition of his fight to defend freedom of expression in Russia alongside the democracy campaigner of the Philippines, Maria Ressa. The journalist had however, auctioned off his Nobel medal to raise money for Ukrainian refugees.

For more than two decades Muratov edited the Novaya Gazette which got its funding from from the late Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader before the paper’s publication was stopped in March 2022. He also fled to Lavtvia last year and launched a new online publication called Novaya Gazeta Europe.

Muratov now resides in Russia despite constant pressure from the authorities and in June joined the defense team of Oleg Orlov, the co-chairperson of the human rights group Memorial. Orlov also was prosecuted under the “foreign agents” law and is now on trial in Moscow for disrespecting the Russian armed forces.

According to the ‘foreign agents’ law, any person who is labeled as a foreign media agent has to register and provide details of activities and finances every six months. Moreover, all their material, including social media messages, has to contain a long message indicating their status as a foreign agent.

Around six paper’s journalists and collaborators have been killed since 2000 including investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya as well, who had exposed human rights abuses by Russian forces and their allies in Chechnya.