On 26 June 2024, a court in Moscow arrested Russian exiled journalist Farida Kurbangaleeva in absentia for two months on charges of “appeals to terrorism or its justification” as well as “disseminating false information” on the Russian army, Russian independent media reported.
The move came after a decision on June 19 by Russia’s Ministry of Interior to place the journalist on Russia’s ‘wanted’ list. While authorities did not initially disclose information on the criminal case Kurbangaleeva was being pursued for, Russian independent media suspected that the accusations were linked to terrorism, due to specific markings next to the journalist’s name in Russia’s “list of terrorists and extremists”, which Russian authorities typically insert next to suspects’ names in this situation.
According to the journalist, the criminal case for “disseminating false information” is linked to a social media post in which she denounced Russian war crimes in Bucha, while the terrorism-related charges are linked to an interview she conducted in May with a soldier fighting for Ukraine within the Freedom of Russia legion, a unit which recruits pro-Ukrainian fighters from Russia. In an earlier comment on the case on Facebook, Kurbangaleeva said that this decision would not influence her work as a journalist.
Farida Kurbangaleeva has been in exile since 2014, when she left Russia, as well as her job at Russia’s state-controlled TV station Channel One, in protest against the annexation of Crimea and the ensuing war in eastern Ukraine. In 2018-21, she worked for Prague-based Russian-language TV channel Current Time. She currently develops her own media products, including a Youtube channel with 30 thousand subscribers.
UPDATE: On 28 June 2024, Russia’s Ministry of Justice designated Kurbangaleeva as a “foreign agent”.
UPDATE: On 9 October 2024, Russian independent media reported that an international arrest warrant had also been put out for Kurbangaleeva, however the same media also reported that the journalist’s name did not appear on the Interpol website.