Journalist Maria Borzunova was recognized as a “foreign agent” for transferring money from friends for dinners and going to a bar. She announced this in the Telegram channel.
She clarified that the Ministry of Justice recognized her as a “foreign agent” because she worked as a journalist for Dozhd, distributed “foreign agents” Meduza, Mediazona, and her colleague Danya Sotnikov, who was also recognized as a “foreign agent” last year.
“And now the funniest and most idiotic. What is foreign funding according to the Ministry of Justice. Dozhd TV channel, which regularly paid my salary and was recognized as a foreign agent? Not! So. According to the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, which approached the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation on December 27, 2021, Borzunova Maria Mikhailovna, born on January 14, 1995, is the recipient of funds from Gershkovich Evan (USA) from July 2020 to November 2021 - 3 transactions in the amount of 1290 rubles!!!! And also Lahbabi Nadin Saadovna (Belarus) from March 2019 to May 2020 - 18 operations in the amount of 10,270 rubles.
The journalist explained that Gershkovich is her close friend, a former journalist for The Moscow Times, who now works for The Wall Street Journal. According to her, he transferred a thousand rubles to her because she bought him a drink at a bar. Another sender indicated by the Ministry of Justice is Nadine, her colleague and friend, a former producer of Dozhd, with whom they could transfer money to each other for food and coffee.
“On the other hand, the Ministry of Justice confirmed that I am an agent of Belarus (and for 1,000 US rubles!). But we already knew this, ”concluded Borzunova.
In 2017, Russia adopted a law on the media-“foreign agents”. According to it, any media outlet that receives funding or property from abroad can be recognized as a “foreign agent”. In 2019, a new law was adopted, which made it possible to classify as "foreign agents" not only legal entities, but also individuals.
Since December 2020, individuals and unregistered public associations receiving funding from abroad can also be given this status for “political activity” in Russia, which de facto includes any public assessment of the activities of any state authorities. In addition, on March 1, 2021, penalties for violations of the activities of “foreign agents” were toughened: today they provide for both administrative fines and criminal liability for up to five years in prison.
Over the past years, hundreds of media, NGOs and individuals have been included in the registers of “foreign agents”. The first five people - human rights activist Lev Ponomarev, journalists Lyudmila Savitskaya, Sergey Markelov and Denis Kamalyagin, as well as civil activist Daria Apakhonchich - were included in the corresponding list on December 28, 2020. Later, this status was assigned to Meduza and the First Anti-Corruption Media. On May 14, VTimes was recognized as a “foreign agent” media outlet, the editors of which later decided to close the media outlet due to the new status.
In addition, after the outbreak of the war, Roskomnadzor demanded that the Russian media use only the wording “special operation” when covering the invasion of Ukraine. Since February 24, The Insider, Radio Liberty, Current Time, Krym.Realii, Voice of America, New Times, Taiga.info, DOXA, Ekho Moskvy, Dozhd have been blocked in Russia , Meduza, BBC Russian Service, Deutsche Welle and others. TV channel "Rain", radio "Echo of Moscow" and the Tomsk agency TV2 decided to stop working. In most cases, the block was initiated by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office.
Roskomnadzor also blocked the social networks Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And the court recognized the activities of the American corporation Meta as extremist and banned it in Russia.
