“We are telling law enforcement to pay attention to these statements from a high-ranking official that break Russian Federation laws,” the request says. At the beginning of the week, Novaya Gazeta approached the Investigative Committee due to Kadyrov's earlier statements.
The Ekho Moskvy editors showed support for Dozhd TV channel (recognized as a foreign agent) and Novaya Gazeta after Kadyrov's remarks. The radio station released a statement urging President Vladimir Putin to intervene. Alexei Venediktov, the radio station's editor-in-chief, announced this on his Telegram channel.
“In light of the threats against our colleagues from Novaya Gazeta and the Dozhd TV channel by the head of the Chechen Republic, we want to express our solidarity with the journalists of these publications,” the statement said.
The editors think that law enforcement should take notice of these words, as they violate Russian laws and come from a high-ranking official who is a general of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “We ask the President of Russia, as the guarantor of the Constitution of Russia, to intervene in this situation,” Ekho Moskvy said in a statement.
The Editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov, informed RBC that the editors submitted an application to the Investigative Committee on January 31. Nadezhda Prusenkova, head of the newspaper’s press service, clarified that it was Kadyrov’s previous statement. According to her, the editors do not plan to submit another application yet.
RBC made requests to the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General’s Office.
The Minister for National Policy, Foreign Relations, Press and Information of Chechnya, Akhmed Dudayev, told RBC that within the country “the fifth column is effectively carrying out its subversive activities.” “And when they point to it, they say that they are enemies of the people, the country, they call it the fifth column – they aggressively start shouting, turning to the same authorities that they have been discrediting for years. The judicial, law enforcement system, the country’s leadership,” Dudayev said.
On February 1, Kadyrov called for criminal proceedings against Dozhd and Novaya Gazeta, as well as against the head of the Committee against Torture (the legal entities of the organization were recognized as foreign agents, now it works without registration) Igor Kalyapin and a journalist from Novaya Gazeta Elena Milashina. “What facts do you need that they are terrorists, accomplices of terrorists? Where are you looking?” he turned to law enforcement.
The press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, said earlier that claims against Kadyrov are not the Kremlin’s issue. “If we are talking about the safety, life and health of people, then this is the topic of law enforcement agencies, this is not the topic of the Kremlin. There is no need for the Kremlin to watch this. Law enforcement agencies perform their functions and do it very clearly,” he noted.
