We released the following statement today after a magistrate court in the city of Samara convicted Sergei Kurt-Adzhiyev, editor of the shuttered local edition of the Moscow-based independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, of using counterfeit Adobe, Microsoft, and 1C software to produce the newspaper.
“The allegation of software piracy is nothing but a lame excuse for the authorities to close down one of the few independent voices left on the Russian media market,” CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. “We call on Russia’s courts to exercise their independence and overturn this shameful conviction on appeal.”