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United States Embassy spokeswoman Rebecca Ross said Tuesday that she was concerned about the arrests of journalists in Russia.
“We are following the arrests of Russian journalists one after another; it is beginning to seem like a coherent campaign against #Media Freedom,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Take care of your own affairs,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a response to Twitter, reacting on Tuesday night.
That same day, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested Ivan Honronov, a highly respected former journalist. A former reporter for the independent newspapers Kommersant and Vedomosti, who now works as an adviser to the head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos, is suspected of treason.
The arrest of Safronov, 30, caused outrage among his followers and journalists. The arrest is said to be a punishment for Safronov’s previous articles on Russia’s defense sector.
Yevgeny Smirnov, a member of the Safronov law firm, said his client had been suspected of collaborating with Czech intelligence since 2012.
FSB investigators are convinced that Czech intelligence is following the instructions of the United States, Smirnov told AFP.
The Federal Security Service said Safronov was collecting classified data on the Russian army, defense and security. He allegedly passed the collected material to the intelligence of the Czech Republic, which is a member of NATO.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated on Wednesday that Safronov’s arrest was not related to his journalistic work.
He also rejected many of his former colleagues and “emotional” statements by the media that Safronov was innocent.
“We have to wait for the trial,” Peskov told reporters.
Ivan Pavlov, a lawyer for I. Safronov, said that the former journalist’s case consists of seven volumes, so it is likely that the security service has monitored him for a long time.
In Russia, all major televisions are controlled by the state.
Press journalists and news portals have recently complained that media freedom is increasingly restricted in the country and that the Kremlin is pressing.
On Monday, a journalist in the northwest city of Pskov received 500,000. ruble (more than 6 thousand euros) fine for “justification of terrorism”. This case also sparked outrage from many.
Prosecutors demanded that Svetlana Prokopiev, who works as a freelance on the Russian edition of Radio Free Europe / Radio Freedom (RFE / RL), be sentenced to six years in prison for commenting on an attack.
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