On August 3 2022, the Tagansky District Court of Moscow found the Journalists and Media Workers’ Union (JMWU), an EFJ affiliate in Russia, guilty of allegedly “discrediting the Russian armed forces” (Code of administrative offenses of the Russian Federation). JMWU was ordered to pay the maximum fine of 500,000 rubles (8,000 euros).
The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) denounces this illegitimate trial, which only aims to facilitate the dissolution of the union, during a hearing scheduled for September 14. According to the indictment, JMWU was held responsible for the “spreading of ideas related to a negative attitude towards the special military operation carried out by the Russian Federation in Ukraine”.
Specifically, the prosecution accuses JMWU of having issued a statement “Stop the war in Ukraine, on February 26 and of having co-signed the Perugia Declaration of Ukraine, a text which was also co-signed by the EFJ and many journalists’ unions and associations in Europe.
As JMWU lawyer Maxim Krupsky points out, the union is therefore being sanctioned for exercising its constitutional right to freedom of expression. Article 29 of the Russian Constitution guarantees freedom of thought and expression and prohibits censorship.
“In its decision today, comments Maxim Krupsky, the court therefore canceled this constitutional provision. At the same time, the court did not specify which Russian law prohibits the dissemination of a negative opinion about the armed forces forces and the special military operation, nor does it say where in the current legislation there is a requirement for citizens and organizations to have an exclusively positive opinion about the Russian armed forces and the special military operation”.
“It is very clear that this abusive procedure aims to discredit the independent union of Russian journalists in order to facilitate, in a second stage, its dissolution,” reacted the President of the EFJ, Maja Sever. “We strongly denounce this procedure and the repression of journalists by the Russian regime.”
