New York, November 26, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Russian authorities to immediately release Russian journalist Nika Novak, who was sentenced by a court in the far-eastern city of Chita on Tuesday to four years in prison on “confidential cooperation with a foreign organization” charges.
“Nika Novak’s four-year prison sentence handed behind closed doors in the Russian Far East demonstrates that the Russian authorities are continuing their relentless, silent crackdown on journalists,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s program coordinator for Europe and Central Asia. “Russian authorities should not contest Novak’s appeal and immediately release her and all other jailed journalists.”
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) regional branch accused Novak of cooperating with a foreign media outlet, alleging that she was paid to help prepare inaccurate materials discrediting the Russian army and state authorities.
Novak was detained on December 25, 2023, and ordered held under arrest until February 24, 2024, under “confidential” cooperation charges. The law, adopted in July 2022, imposes a prison sentence of up to eight years in jail, under Article 275.1 of Russia’s criminal code.
Novak is the first journalist to be sentenced to prison under this law, according to investigative news outlet Agentstvo. She plans to appeal her sentence, a source close to her case told CPJ under condition of anonymity.
“We condemn today’s unjust conviction and sentencing of RFE/RL journalist Nika Novak in Russia. These politically motivated charges are intended to silence individual reporters and cause a chilling effect,” RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said in a statement shared with CPJ via email.
Novak is the former editor-in-chief of local outlet ChitaMedia and former editor-in-chief of the local news portal Zab.ru. Since 2022, she has been a freelance correspondent for the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which authorities have banned as undesirable in February 2024.
CPJ emailed the branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee in Zabaykalsky Krai, where ChitaMedia is located, for comment but received no response. CPJ called the press service of FSB branch in Zabaykalsky Krai, but nobody picked up the phone.
Russia is the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with CPJ’s most recent prison census documenting at least 22 journalists, in prison on December 1, 2023.