Russia charges journalist with ‘justifying terrorism’

Russia has detained prominent journalist Nadezhda Kevorkova and charged her with “justifying terrorism” over posts on her Telegram account, her lawyer said Monday.

Kevorkova, 65, wrote for a number of outlets including Novaya Gazeta and Russia Today and specialized in coverage of the Middle East, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Nadezhda Kevorkova has been detained and will be taken to a temporary detention center today. The matter of pre-trial restrictions will be decided tomorrow,” lawyer Kaloy Akhilgov said.

The charges relate to two posts on her Telegram from 2018 and 2021, one a re-post from another journalist about the 2005 Islamist raid on Nalchik and the other about Afghanistan, he said.

The raid on Nalchik, a city in Russia’s North Caucasus, saw armed Islamist militants target government and security buildings in an attack that left dozens of people dead.

Her ex-husband Maxim Shevchenko, who presents a talk show on state television, rejected the charges against her.

“Nadezhda Kevorkova never justified terrorism and never justified the attack on Nalchik … but as a journalist, she certainly wrote about torture during the investigation,” he said.

Russia has waged an unprecedented crackdown on freedom of the press since launching its full-scale offensive in Ukraine, silencing and detaining journalists at odds with the Kremlin.