Arrests of Journalists in Russia Continue to Rise Since 2014

The Russian government ordered its media outlets to remove reports describing Russia's military operation in Ukraine as an "attack," "invasion," or "declaration of war" on Saturday (February 26th).

According to *TheMoscowTimes.com* (February 26th), the Russian government accused several local media outlets of disseminating "false information" about Russian soldiers firing on Ukrainian cities, resulting in civilian deaths. They also claimed that "reliable information" could only be found on official Russian government information channels.

Media outlets spreading "false information" face fines of up to five million rubles, approximately Rp685 million (IDR).

Russia's Press Freedom Continues to Deteriorate

Press freedom in Russia has shown a worsening trend in recent years.

Citing data from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the number of journalist arrests in Russia increased annually between 2014 and 2021.

In 2014, only one journalist was arrested. However, the number of arrests increased to two in 2015, three in 2016, and five in 2017 and 2018.

Arrests continued to rise to seven journalists in 2019, ten in 2020, and fourteen in 2021.

CPJ has not recorded any journalist arrests in 2022. However, as of Tuesday (March 1st), CPJ has recorded seven Russian journalists reported missing.

Since Russia announced its invasion of Ukraine last Thursday (February 24th), several English-speaking journalists have resigned from Russian media outlets. One example is television journalist Shadia Edwards-Dashti, who resigned from *Russia Today* (RT).