“Resist”: Russian opposition candidates gather in the media

MOSCOW, Sept. 4 (Reuters) – A dozen opposition candidates in Russia’s September parliamentary elections gathered dozens of journalists in Moscow on Saturday in a message of resistance against the Kremlin’s expression of independent media.

Authorities have designated nearly 50 journalists and media outlets as “foreign agents” – a term they say designates foreign-funded outlets with political bias, but which critics denounce as a setback to persecution in style. Soviet.

“(President Vladimir) Putin set a goal: all media must be destroyed because they bother him,” Marina Litvinovich, one of the opposition candidates, told a crowd of about 200 people, mostly journalists .

“My friends, we have to resist as long as we can. A lot of media will have to go underground.”

The Kremlin denies persecuting the media for political reasons.

Critics, however, say Putin’s government has backtracked on the communist government’s repressive tactics in the former Soviet Union.

“There was a time when they used the label‘ enemies of the people. ’They are now‘ foreign agents, ’” pensioner Marina Artamonova told Reuters at Saturday’s meeting, referring to a label widely used during the dictatorship of Josef Stalin.

Foreign agent status requires the media to submit detailed reports of activities and finances, increasing the risk of prosecution.

Candidates promised journalists to campaign to overthrow legislation on foreign agents if elected.

“Such a shameful and discriminatory law should not exist in any way,” said Irina Dolinina, a journalist with the research medium Important Stories, who was described as a foreign agent last month.

Report by Maria Tsvetkova; Edited by Andrey Ostroukh; Edited by Andrew Cawthorne

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