You're reading: ​Independent journalists under pressure in Russian-occupied Crimea

As Russia prepares to celebrate the anniversary of the Crimean annexation, a new crackdown on the journalists began on the peninsula.

On March 13, Natalia Kokorina, a Ukrainian journalist and editor for the Center for Investigative Journalism, was questioned by the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, in Simferopol. She was held for six hours before being released.

Kokorina’s colleagues said that FSB officers searched her parents’ apartment. Kokorina’s father later asked the journalist not to film anything near the building and didn’t disclose any information.

That was followed by a search of an apartment in Simferopol that belongs to the parents of another local journalist, aformer editor for the Center for Investigative Journalism, Anna Andriyevska.

Valentyna Samar, the chief editor for the center, said she was still learning the details of the case. Journalists and a lawyer were not allowed at the search, and later went to the FSB office in Simferopol.

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According to Samar, FSB officers also confiscated a computer belonging to Andriyevska’s father and her old paper notebooks, even though she has been living in Kyiv for the last year.

Samar believes it has something to do with Andriyevska’s recent story on Crimeans fighting in Donbas and their hope for the peninsula return to Ukraine. However, any public discussion of such an issue is a criminal offense now in Crimea.

“Andriyevska was suspected on the encroachment on the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation,” Samar adds.

Even though journalists are under pressure in Crimea, Kokorina conducted a number of investigations on freedom violations in Crimea and attacks on local journalists. Kokorina, a native of Simferopol, has been working as a journalist since 2006.

“However, I have no idea what influenced the situation. And you know, Crimea is totally unlawful now,” Samar said.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe condemned the intimidation of independent journalists in Crimea following Kokorina’s detention.

Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]