Four journalists who worked for an independent Moscow student magazine have been sentenced to two years’ “corrective labour” over an online video in which they defended young Russians’ freedom of assembly.
Former Doxa journalists Armen Aramyan, Natasha Tyshkevich, Alla Gutnikova and Volodya Metelkin had been under house arrest for almost a year after they were detained in April 2021 for posting a three-minute video on YouTube in which they said it was illegal to expel and intimidate students for participating in rallies in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
A Moscow court on Tuesday said the video had encouraged “the involvement of minors” in anti-Kremlin protests.
Under Russian law, those handed correctional labour sentences must pay the government up to 20% of their wages if they are employed. If they are unemployed, they must work at jobs assigned by the country’s prison service during the term of their sentence.
The Russian court also banned the four from administering internet resources for three years.
Doxa founder Aramyan, 24, expressed relief that the sentence was not tougher: the four journalists had been facing up to three years in jail.
“I am very glad to be finally free. It was an amazing feeling when our ankle bracelets were taken off right in court. It could have been worse,” he told the Guardian. “At the same time, we still received a real sentence for an absurd, made-up case.”
The sentencing comes amid an unprecedented crackdown on independent media and antiwar dissent. Last month, the Russian parliament passed a law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military.
Human Rights Watch described the accusations against the four journalists as “baseless”. Dozens of leading scholars, including Slavoj Žižek, Etienne Balibar and Judith Butler signed an open letter in support of the journal in 2021.
Doxa was set up by students and university graduates at the prestigious Moscow’s Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2017. It quickly became the leading independent student outlet, exposing corruption and systemic sexual harassment in universities across the country.
“We were really the first of our kind. A leftist, feminist, antiwar paper that was doing investigations. Students from across the country reached out to us,” Aramyan said.
In 2019, the HSE cut its ties with Doxa after it voiced support for students who had taken part in the Moscow opposition protests that year.
While the four editors said they had officially resigned from Doxa when their trial started, the outlet has continued its work, becoming one of the loudest antiwar voices in the country.
A week after Russia launched the invasion of Ukraine, the authorities blocked Doxa’s website over its refusal to take down an explainer that was critical of the country’s role in Ukraine.
Aramyan derided Russia’s actions in Ukraine during his closing statement in court earlier this month, taking a minute of silence “in memory of those who have died in this war,” despite repeated requests from the judge to continue his statement.
