The home of a Russian journalist has been raided in connection with songs which she uploaded to her social media profile five years ago, the Gazeta news website reported Thursday.
Natalia Vakhonina, the chief editor of the Mezhdu Strok regional news agency in the central Russian city of Nizhny Tagil, allegedly uploaded songs by far-right Russian supremacist group Huk Sprava to social networking site VKontakte in 2011.
Police have begun criminal proceedings against Vakhonina for “inciting hatred
and demeaning human dignity.” She denies all charges.
"I regard what is happening now as [government] pressure on our media and journalists. It is not surprising that this is being done with elections coming up," Mezhdu Strok's director, Egor Buichkov, wrote on Facebook.
"Mezhdu Strok's staff will not stop engaging in journalism despite threats and intimidation. We demand an end to this repression against our chief editor Natalia Vakhonina on these trumped-up charges," the news agency said in a statement on their website.
