A week of repression follows constitutional referendum
Many believed there would be a reckoning after Russia’s constitutional referendum, but few expected the authorities to act so quickly, and with such ferocity. In the week since Russians voted to allow Putin to ‘reset’ his presidential term count, two major criminal cases were opened: one into a prominent journalist, the other against one of Russia’s few opposition governors. Other activists and journalists have also been targeted by law enforcement.
Defense industry reporter accused of treason
- Journalist Ivan Safronov, 30, was arrested Tuesday on treason charges. A former reporter at business dailies Kommersant and Vedomosti, Safronov was two months into a job advising the head of Russia’s state-owned space agency, Roscosmos. The maximum sentence for treason in Russia is 20 years in jail.
- A specialist on the defense industry, journalism runs in Safronov’s family. His father, a retired colonel, covered the defense industry for Kommersant until 2007 when he fell from a window while working on an article about illegal arms sales to Iran. Those close to him do not accept it was suicide. His son took over his job at the newspaper.
- Safronov Jr. is accused of collaborating with Czech intelligence and passing information about a Russian arms delivery to an unidentified African country. Prosecutors allege Safronov was recruited in 2012 and divulged secrets “via the internet” in 2017. We know all of this from Safronov’s lawyers: the case will be held behind closed doors.
- There are many questions about the charges, including whether they are related to Safronov’s journalism. His reporting often upset powerful people — for example, his article last year about a delivery of a Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jet to Egypt was deleted (Rus) from Kommersant’s website after apparently being used by the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to threaten Egypt with sanctions. He is unlikely to have had access to secrets at Roscosmos: according to official reports, his job did not involve such security clearance. Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov and head of foreign intelligence Sergei Naryshkin both denied that the charges relate to Safronov’s journalism.
- Russian treason law is vague, and can be applied extremely broadly. For example, a sales clerk was sentenced (Rus) to seven years in prison in 2016 for sending a text message to a Georgian friend about tanks she saw passing through the Black Sea city of Sochi. In addition, treason cases often involve (Rus) the worst of Russia’s justice system: presumption of guilt, violation of a defendant’s rights, and falsification of evidence. All such trials are held behind closed doors, making it is impossible to judge the fairness of the hearing.
- Several media outlets spoke out in Safronov’s defense, including The Bell (Rus), and dozens of journalists were arrested at protest pickets. His colleagues describe (Rus) Safronov as an decent, professional and scrupulous journalist.
|