27 attacks and threats against journalists, newsrooms, and online activists were documented last year in occupied Crimea, according to a report by Justice for Journalists (JFJ) published in early February. According to the document, repression against media workers who left the region has also intensified.
The data shows that criminal and administrative prosecution of media workers remained the main method of attack, and government officials remained the main source of threats against media workers, bloggers, and online activists in Crimea.
According to the Ukrainian human rights organization ZMINA, imprisoned journalists are frequently subjected to torture and inhuman treatment in detention centers, being placed in punishment cells and denied access to medical care. At the same time, they are illegally transferred from the occupied territories to prisons in Russia, where relatives and lawyers do not have constant access to them.
“Since the beginning of the occupation in 2014, the Crimean Peninsula has faced significant restrictions on freedom of expression and access to information. The phenomenon of citizen journalism has emerged on the peninsula, aimed at resisting the occupation and providing locals and the international community with objective information about what is happening there. However, the occupying authorities have begun to crack down on activists, media outlets, and citizen journalists,” according to the Ukrainian publication’s analysis.
ZMINA documented 162 cases of pressure on journalists in the temporarily occupied Crimea between 2022 and 2023. Since the beginning of 2024, there have been over 80 cases of pressure exerted by the occupying authorities on professional media workers and citizen journalists.
In addition, ZMINA reports that since the start of the large-scale invasion in 2022, the Russian Federation has applied the same methods of suppressing freedom of expression in the newly occupied territories of the Herson and Zaporijjea regions, harassing and illegally detaining professional journalists, bloggers, and freelancers.