Russia: Suddenly “foreign agent” | tagesschau.de

One month before the parliamentary elections, Moscow is increasing the pressure on independent journalists and election observers: Those who do not work for the state media are classified as “foreign agents” – possibly for life.

The journalist Roman Schlejnow only wants to meet in a remote Moscow park – in a café: too sensitive. He still doesn’t understand, he says, what his new legal status as “foreign agent” means in practice. The Ministry of Justice recently proved it to the investigative reporter and the iStories editorial team, where he works – because they are supposedly funded from abroad.

For the Russian government they are henchmen of foreign powers, says Schlejnow. In their eyes this is absolutely clear: “Oh, you don’t work for Russian mass media, which we have harassed from all sides to control? That means that someone else controls you, if not us.”

A status to control

According to the law, Schlejnow and other “foreign agents” now have to report every little income and expense to the Ministry of Justice – and mark every article, every business letter, every post on social networks with a prescribed text:

This content has been created and / or disseminated by a foreign mass medium acting as a foreign agent and / or by a Russian legal person acting as a foreign agent.

A branding that is intended to instill distrust among advertisers and interlocutors. Schlejnow has been exposing corruption and grievances in Russia for more than 20 years – he worked on the “Panama Papers”. Now it is not clear how he can continue to practice his profession – because the agent status, he fears, was just the beginning.

Now also independent election observers

Russian civil and human rights organizations were first classified in this way. In the meantime, media and individuals can also be added to the list – or projects that are not even registered as an association. Exactly one month before the Duma election, the independent election observation group Golos was declared a “foreign agent”.

Now they have come up with the next new register, according to which there are seven types of “foreign agents” in Russia. There is probably nowhere more in the world, says Golos director Grigorij Melkonjanz sarcastically. The work will continue – but under these circumstances it will hardly be possible for them to observe elections.

The last independent media

The fact that it recently hit the television station Doschd caused horror not only among journalists. Kirill Martynow from the renowned “Novaya Gazeta” believes that the Doschd broadcaster is one of the last major independent media outlets in the country. And he is the only independent broadcaster that gives people information when the state broadcasters are not enough for them.

He speaks of an act of revenge by the government for Doschd’s reporting on Kremlin critic Alexej Navalny and police violence. Others assume that the assembly line appointment of critical organizations as “foreign agents” is aimed at the Duma elections in September: The ruling party United Russia is not welcome to object.

The pressure could rise

Golos director Melkonjanz thinks that the more opposition members the agent status hits, the less suspicious it makes the Russians. People would already know that this status is not a sign of a bad organization – on the contrary.

The award-winning investigative journalist Schlejnow declares that the status in this sense is an honor for him. Even if he finds it absurd that state employees of all people often spend part of their life abroad. “How are these people not ‘foreign agents’?” He asks, “but we who write about having relatives and villas, wives and children abroad?”

He doesn’t want to think about the fact that he might have to emigrate himself if the pressure continues to rise and he can no longer find a job. But no one in Russia has yet succeeded in getting rid of the classification as a “foreign agent”.