Four journalists were convicted of extremism on Tuesday by a Russian court and sentenced to 5 and a half years in prison for their ties to the country’s deceased opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Antonina Favorskaya, Konstantin Gabov, Sergey Karelin and Artyom Kriger were accused of working with Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption, according to The Associated Press. The organization was outlawed in 2021 due to alleged extremist views, which led to a 19-year sentence for its leader, who died in an Arctic penal colony last year.
All four journalists have maintained their innocence and say they were prosecuted for pursuing independent journalism.
Their arrests came in 2024 following Moscow’s crackdown on writers and activists who have detailed the arrests of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s political critics and opponents.
Both Favorskaya and Kriger provided coverage for the independent outlet SotaVision, while Gabov did freelance work for Reuters and Karelin documented stories as a freelance visual journalist for the AP.
“In our country, being an independent, honest, professional journalist and working with independent media are huge challenges, as there is a risk of going to prison, being killed, having big financial problems,” Kriger wrote for SotaVision while in pretrial detention.
“If all this were to be summarized, then the best expression would be ‘to experience on your own skin all the charms of a repressive state,’” he added.
Favorskaya at a previous public court appearance said she was being prosecuted for an article she wrote about Navalny’s alleged abuse behind bars, according to the AP.
“Independent journalism is equated to extremism,” Gabov said in a statement to the outlet.