The Basmanny District Court of Moscow satisfied the claim of Roskomnadzor to invalidate the license of Novaya Gazeta. This was reported by a Mediazona correspondent from the courtroom.
“[The court decision] means nothing. This is an insignificant decision, a custom-made political one, which does not have the slightest legal basis,” said Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta. He added that the publication would appeal against the recognition of the license as invalid: “We will go through all these paths to the end.”
According to Roskomnadzor, the reason for the lawsuit was that in 2006 the publication changed the founder of the editorial office, but did not submitted a charter to Roskomnadzor, as required by the law «On Mass Media». According to the defense of Novaya Gazeta, the publication began publication in 2002, and four years later there were minor changes that did not require the filing of a new charter for registering the newspaper.
Roskomnadzor v Novaya Gazeta. Online from the Basmanny Court
During the meeting, the publication's lawyer asked the plaintiff's side: «Now the question is often asked:» What did you do for eight years? «. And what did you [Roskomnadzor] do during these 16 years?” The representative of the department replied: “Roskomnadzor has the right to react, and it has the right not to react.”
By March 2022, Roskomnadzor issued two warnings to Novaya Gazeta due to the mention of “foreign agents” without labeling. According to the law, this may become the basis for the annulment of the mass media registration certificate. After that, the publication suspended its work.
A few days later, Roskomnadzor demanded that the reports of journalist Elena Kostyuchenko from Kherson and Nikolaev be removed from the Novaya Gazeta website. For the text from Kherson, the publication was fined 350 thousand rubles under the article about “fake news”.