The latest issue of “Novaya Gazeta”, the Russian newspaper that has been fighting the Putin regime for years and which yesterday announced the stop of publications, contains two blank pages. Obviously unwanted: the Russian media control body, the “Roskomnadzor”, censored the newspaper directed by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov. The photo with the two blank pages that went to newsstands was published on Twitter by Ezio Mauro, former director of “Repubblica”, who wrote “the Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper of Anna Politkovskaya and Nobel laureate Dimitri Muratov, came out with two blank pages for censorship before being forced to close ».
A white man who smacks of mockery (and also of proven proof that there is no excessive alarmism on the part of journalists towards the situation in Russia) given that the reason for the closure of the newspaper is due precisely to the control that the state agency makes , always and even more severely, in the Russian media. Yesterday the editorial office had announced the stop of publications and still today the notice appears on the site explaining the reason: «We have received another notice from Roskomnadzor. Subsequently, we suspend the publication of the newspaper on the website, in the networks and in the paper – until the end of the “special operation on the territory of Ukraine”. Sincerely, the editors of the “Novaya Gazeta” ».
Novaya Gazeta closes, press freedom dies
Anna Zafesova
In particular, public opinion was struck by the formula used by the editors “special operation on the territory of Ukraine”: a phrase that Vladimir Putin himself imposed on everyone – media and citizens – already in the hours following the invasion of the former Soviet country. Today’s two blank pages in the newspaper that once belonged to Anna Politkovskaya show – in fact – that, even in 2022, freedom of the press is still very scary.