On 16 May 2023, police searched the apartment of Nailya Mullayeva, a freelance reporter with multiple media outlets, in Kazan, the capital of the Russian Federation’s Republic of Tatarstan, according to news reports. Officers seized two mobile phones, a laptop, two SIM cards, and said Mullayeva was a witness in an investigation into a comment posted in a public group on the social media platform VKontakte, by a man identified as Pavel Chumakov, which allegedly discredited the Russian armed forces. Mullayeva said she was not familiar with Chumakov, has no connection to the group, and was unsure whether the search was related to her work as a journalist or her activism, adding that she had not participated in activism for over a year. The journalist runs BIRDS, a Telegram channel with 190 subscribers that reports on social issues and politics in Tatarstan. Mullayeva is also a member of the Tatarstan branch of the Libertarian Party of Russia.
“This is the trick of the Kazan law enforcers: to create fake criminal cases and rob journalists and activists every few months”, said Aleksei Obukhov, editor of the news outlet SOTA. In March 2022, authorities searched Mullayeva’s apartment, and in September 2022, she was detained in Kazan while covering an anti-mobilisation protest for SOTA. She then left the Russian Federation. When she returned to Kazan in December 2022, she had her passport seized. She was eventually able to leave, but was later arrested in absentia for six days for reposting information about an anti-mobilisation protest. Mullayeva was then fined 30,000 rubles (€348) for allegedly discrediting the Russian armed forces.
UPDATE: On 30 June 2023, Mullayeva reported that none of the devices confiscated by authorities had been returned to her, despite the fact that authorities had allegedly already investigated their content.