(AP) – A Moscow court on Friday ordered a Russian journalist who covered the trials of late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and other dissidents to remain in custody pending an investigation and trial on charges of extremism.
Antonina Favorskaya, also identified by court officials as Antonina Kravtsova, was arrested earlier in March. On Friday, Moscow’s Basmanny District Court ordered that she remain in pre-trial detention at least until May 28.
The hearing was conducted behind closed doors at the request of the investigators, which was supported by the presiding judge. Favorskaya and her lawyer protested the decision, the independent news site Mediazona reported.
“I am completely against a closed process. The press needs to know what’s going on here, what I’m being accused of,” the outlet quoted Favorskaya as saying.
She is accused of collecting material, producing and editing videos and publications for Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption, which had been outlawed as extremist by Russian authorities, according to court officials. She has been charged with involvement with an extremist group, a criminal offense punishable by up to six years in prison.
Favorskaya was initially detained on March 17 after laying flowers on Navalny’s grave. She spent 10 days in jail after being accused of disobedience toward the police, but when that period of detention ended, authorities charged her again and ordered her to appear in court Friday, according to OVD-Info, a Russian human rights group.
Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, said that Favorskaya did not publish anything on the Foundation’s platforms and suggested that Russian authorities have targeted her because she was doing her job as a journalist.
“Even if we discard the falsity of the accusation, its essence remains — the journalist is accused of journalistic activity,” Yarmysh wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Navalny died in an Arctic penal colony in February. Favorskaya covered Navalny’s court hearings for years, as well as trials of other Kremlin critics swept up in a relentless government clampdown.
She was one of six journalists detained across Russia this month, media freedom organization Reporters Without Borders said Thursday.
Favorskaya is one of several Russian journalists targeted by authorities as part of the crackdown on dissent in Russia, aimed at opposition figures, journalists, activists and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Her jailing by the court came on the first anniversary of the arrest of Evan Gershkovich, a 32-year-old reporter for The Wall Street Journal who is awaiting trial in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison on espionage charges, which he and his employer have vehemently denied.
The US government has declared Gershkovich wrongfully detained, with officials accusing Moscow of using the journalist as a pawn for political ends.