Two former DW journalists, Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin, along with two other journalists, have been sentenced to several years in prison in Russia on charges of extremism, that they denied.
A court in Moscow on Tuesday convicted journalists Antonina Favorskaya, Konstantin Gabov, Sergey Karelin, and Artyom Kriger, on charges of extremism.
They were sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison.
They were accused of being part of an “extremist organization,” in reference to the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), founded by Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who died under unclear circumstances in an Arctic prison in February 2024.
Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin previously worked for DW’s Moscow bureau.
All four journalists denied the charges, saying they did not work for the foundation but merely reported on its activities.
The closed-door trial was part of a crackdown on dissent that has reached an unprecedented scale after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
DW condemns the verdict
Peter Limbourg, Director General of Deutsche Welle, said with this verdict Russia “is once again proving with full force that it is a state that disregards the rule of law.”
“The Russian regime is doing everything in its power to distort facts — treating courageous journalists like hardened criminals. Every day that Antonina Favorskaya, Konstantin Gabov, Sergey Karelin, and Artyom Kriger spend behind bars is one too many. They and their families have our full solidarity,” Limbourg added..
The journalists were detained in the spring and summer of 2024: Favorskaya in March, Gabov and Karelin in April, Kriger in June. They have been in custody ever since.
Journalists describe inhumane prison conditions
In letters, Gabov and Karelin described the terrible conditions in Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina prison, where they were transferred in early October.
“It feels like I’m being held somewhere in the basement. A small window somewhere upstairs,” Gabov wrote.
“The cell is overcrowded. I sleep on the floor with a guy. He has been living like this for a month. During the day we sit on a bench (without a backrest) because there is no room. The mattress, blanket and pillow were worn out and it turned out that they had bedbugs. The atmosphere here is oppressive,” he added.
Karelin wrote that in “Matrosskaya Tishina” he was put in an overcrowded cell with four bunks for 8 people. “We slept tops to tails, but not on a bunk, where the surface is straight and hard, but on a prison cot with a ‘pit’ in the center,” he added.
At the time, Karelin’s lawyer, Katerina Tertukhina, described such detention conditions as torture. She stressed that under such conditions her client could not fully prepare for the trial.
Ahead of the verdict Krieger said he was just doing his job as “an honest, incorruptible, and independent journalist,” and described the trial as, “pure madness.”
“Now they’re trying to paint me as an extremist, a criminal, someone who should be locked up,” he said.
Media freedom under pressure in Russia
On the World Press Freedom Index, the NGO Reporters Without Borders ranks Russia 162nd out of 180 countries, noting that media freedom in the country is “virtually non-existent.”
Under President Vladimir Putin, at least 37 journalists have been murdered as a direct result of their work, according to the organization.
On February 4, 2022, Russia banned DW’s broadcasts, forced its Moscow office to close, and blocked dw.com in all languages across the Russian internet. DW’s Russian service continues to operate in Riga, Latvia.
