OSCE concerned by presence of Ukrainian journalists on Russia's list of terrorists and extremists
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe expressed concerns about the publication of an expanded list of “terrorists and extremists” in Russia which includes journalists. As stated by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, the publication of the list by the Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service may seriously jeopardize journalists and their security.
The Russian Government is responsible for the security of journalists and must not jeopardize journalists’ security based on suspicions of anti-extremist prosecutors.
Previously the Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service published an extended list of foreigners and Russians (which includes Crimean citizens as well), that Moscow called terrorists and extremists. Mijatović noted that the list also includes such Crimean journalists as Nikolay Semena who worked as a reporter with Radio Svoboda and Krym.Realii, as well as Anna Andrievskaya.
The Russian part of the list which consists of more than 6,000 individuals contains the names of 22 Crimean citizens. Among them there are Crimean political prisoners, journalists and social activists. In particular, the Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service included on the list of extremists all of the ‘Crimean Four’ – the political prisoners involved in the Sentsov case - Alexander Kolchenko, Oleg Sentsov, Alexey Chirniy, and Gennady Afanasiev, who was recently released from Russian prison. The list also included a blogger, Yuriy Ilchenko, who was arrested after publishing an article against the Russian occupation of the Crimea and Russia’s involvement in the Donbas. The “extremists” list also includes the head of the Ukrainian Azov-Krym civil corps, Stanislav Krasnov, who is in Ukraine on trial for charges of illegal weapons trafficing and, as the Security Service of Ukraine suspects, of having ties with the Russian Secret Services.
Nikolay Semena’s lawyer, Alexander Popkov, called the inclusion of his client in the list of Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service an “extrajudicial reprisal” and did not rule out an appeal to the Constitutional Court of Russia.
In addition to the Crimean citizens, such Ukrainian citizens as Yuriy Bereza, Anton Gerashchenko, Dmytro Korchynsky, Andriy Levus, Igor Mosiychuk and Dmytro Yarosh, were added to the "Russian" part of the list. At the same time the list of “terrorists and extremists” has a foreign citizens part as well.
Ukrainian organizations, such as Bratstvo (Brotherhood), Right Sector, Tryzub (Trident), UNA-UNSO and OUN were included in the ‘Russian Legal Entities’ section of the list.