Civil society and Media
President Vladimir Putin has signed a law on Monday that introduces fines for the unauthorized production or distribution of foreign print media.
After several years of lower ratings, Finland is again ranked near the top of the World Press Freedom Index. Finland is now in second place behind neighbouring Norway, with another neighbour, Sweden, in third. The Netherlands, which was second last year, now slides to fourth.
As lawmakers have gathered at Helsinki’s House of the Estates for government formation negotiations over the past several days, demonstrators from various groups have also assembled there.
The country’s media control authority is ready to block more websites. And take new measures that will prevent you from accessing them.
Officers in uniform broke into the Rakurs center in the north Russian city in what appears as a strike against the small local LGBT community.
Police makes series of detentions and issues major fines in bid to stagger growing protests against the building of a major garbage dump in the south of the region.
The blocking in Russia of the Norwegian newspaper is lifted to diplomatic level.
The State Duma adopts a package of new laws that enables government to crack down on news regarded as «unreliable public information.»
A several thousand kilometer long fiber optic cable is to be laid along the Russian Arctic coast as part of the Armed Forces’ building of a new closed internet.
A Moscow rat race against the independent Norwegian newspaper leads to its closure on Russian territory.
His newspaper is banned by Moscow, but Thomas Nilsen and the Barents Observer continue reporting in Russian.
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You have 24 hours to un-publish this story. If not, the website will be blocked in Russia, state media watchdog Roskomnadzor makes clear in a letter to the Barents Observer.
Obey restrictions imposed by media regulator Roskomnadzor or risk being blocked in Russia.
Svetlana Prokopyova was detained by masked man who first raided her home.
The growing engagement of China in the Arctic is accompanied by independent Chinese-language news from and about the region.
Eyes on Barents
Anatoly Veshchagin is fighting for his right not to serve in the military.
The human rights defender was due to be released from prison in Arkhangelsk before December. That did not happen.
Head of the ecological monitoring and consulting group POMOR, Timofey Surovtsev, wants to counter Norwegian media's negative reporting on environmental problems in Russia.
Eyes on Barents
The human rights expert Alexey Tsykarev from Russia has been refused a visa to Finland. The refusal was based on the Schengen agreement’s paragraph on diseases that concern public health.
Additional limitations are in the pipe for Yandex and other Russian aggregators of up-to-date news coverage.
Eyes on Barents
In Murmansk, politicians working in the shadows are trying to close an independent news agency
Eyes on Barents
Director of the Medvezhyegorsk regional museum Sergey Koltyrin has for more than two decades been a key safeguarder of the Sandarmokh memorial complex in Karelia.
The situation for gays and lesbians in Russia is deteriorating, says journalist and writer Aleksandr Borisov. He foresees more persecution of homosexuals.
People of different ages and political views gathered in a peaceful rally that ended up on the doorstep of Governor Marina Kovtun’s office.
Regional news journal 7x7 has started a major crowdfunding effort after it was fined an unprecedented 850.000 rubles by Russia’s state media inspection agency.
Eyes on Barents
The sentence of blogger Savva Terentyev in 2008 was a violation of freedom of expression, the judges in Strasbourg say.
Violetta Grudina organised a protest rally ahead of the inauguration of Vladimir Putin. Now comes the reaction from the authorities.
It is another crackdown on the Russian media, and it will make it even harder for Russian journalists to engage in cooperation with foreign colleagues.
The Ukrainian film director is on hunger strike for 88 days in the remote Russian Arctic prison of Labytnangi.
Russia’s media supervision authority Roskomnadzor fines 7x7-journal 800.000 rubles for a blog post.
Arkhangelsk and Murmansk Oblasts are the part of the Barents region with sharpest drop in population, while both Northern Sweden and Norway get more people.
A guidebook for journalists issued by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee in connection with the upcoming Football World Cup is a «completely russophobic document», ministry press spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says.
The Federal Security Service is afraid of free journalism, says Thomas Nilsen as he today lost his appeal case in the highest court of Russia. He will now proceed to the European Court of Human Rights.
Eyes on Barents
The Ukrainian film director, who serves a 20-year sentence in the remote Russian Arctic town of Labytnangi, demands the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia.
Regional prosecutors regain momentum in the case against the Karelian human rights defender.
