Novaya Gazeta announces closure of activity in Russia in November

O novaya Gazeta newspaper, independent press reference title in Russia, announced today the closure due to censorship and pressure of the Russian authorities.

“The ‘New Gazette’ ceases to exist. ... Russian authorities, Russian special services, forced the writing to end the activity,” Novaya Gazeta’s chief editor, Sergei Sokolov, said in a statement published today on social networks.

The newspaper known for its investigations into corruption and whose former editor, Dmitri Muratov, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, also indicated that it will end activity in Russia early next month.

“They killed us. On November 9th, we'll turn off the light in our home, where we live for 30 years. We'll shut down the servers and leave. The paper doesn't exist anymore. Russian authorities and secret services forced the writing to stop the work”, today accused the official portal of publication.

The Russian authorities confiscated in 2022 the newspaper’s license to publish printed material or on the Internet.

Members of Novaya Gazeta’s writing who continued to work to support a portal of similar characteristics abroad reported that, after more than 30 years of travel “next to the country (Russia) and citizens”, they were “shot to the street”, without means of subsistence and under the constant threat of repression.

“ We live years of happiness, full of creativity and hopes, readers, friends, texts and movies. But sometimes those years were also terribly bitter. Bitter because it was precisely during the current regime — and not in the 1990s, marked by the ‘mafia’ — that several of our colleagues were murdered for political reasons, for fulfilling professional and civic duty,” the newspaper said today.

In addition to expelling Novaya Gazeta from headquarters, the Russian authorities deactivated the donation system that allowed readers to receive contributions.

“ They deprived us of resources. Completely. It is a coordinated action (...) by agents of the Federal Security Service (FSB) who infiltrated all organizations ", denounced.

The writing accused the Russian Government of reintroducing censorship, blocking publication by all means, confiscating the printing press and preventing any possibility of publication.

“Our editor-in-chief, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitri Muratov, was attacked, almost blind. No criminal charges were filed, although the authors were known. Then our journalists began to be labeled as ‘foreign agents’,” added the writing note.

According to Novaya Gazeta, government pressure “is the history of a country and a society that are being annihilated in exactly the same way”.

“ This is being done by the FSB, the Ministry of Justice, the Attorney General’s Office and others who privatized the State and usurped power, turning it into a “military dictatorship”.

“They say they defend the constitutional order. But no. This is an unconstitutional order. For the Constitution was violated, beaten and gagged”, added the note.