Sadly, there is a new name added to our list this week, although her story began more than a year ago.

Nika Novak is a Russian journalist who was sentenced last year to four years in prison for alleged “confidential cooperation with a foreign state, international or foreign organization.” [RFE/RL, March 4, 2025.]

Like so many others, she was arrested for doing her job as editor-in-chief of the Zab.ru website for ChitaMedia and contributing to programs by RFE/RL’s Siberia.Realties. [Id.]

In December of 2023, FSB (Federal Security Service) agents raided the apartment she shared with her mother in the Siberian city of Chita while they slept, detained Novak, and charged her under Article 275.1 of the Russian Criminal Code, which had been adopted in 2022 — shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — to augment the existing number and definitions of acts considered to constitute treason or espionage. She is the first journalist to be sentenced under that specific article, which Human Rights Watch has called “reminiscent of the Soviet-era ban on contacts with foreigners.” [Id.]

Following her arrest, Novak was flown to Moscow to be placed in pretrial detention. According to relatives, she has been moved to other facilities, the most recent being in Irkutsk. But last week she was transferred to a prison in Novosibirsk, which they described as worse than any of the other facilities she has been held in to date.

Since the latest transfer, she has been sharing a noisy and chaotic cell with ten other inmates facing a variety of criminal charges, and has stopped eating as a result of stress and fear . . . despite having been recognized by Russian human rights group Memorial as a political prisoner.

Her arrest has also been condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Coalition for Women in Journalism. And the International Press Institute has said that her sentencing was “made possible by Russia’s continued instrumentalization of its own legislation with the aim of repressing independent journalists and other critical voices.” [RFE/RL Advocacy.]

I don’t think there’s much doubt of that.

*. *. *

Novak’s lawyers have filed a motion to have her moved to a different cell, on the basis of provisions of Russian law stating that prisoners like Novak should be kept separate from others accused of serious, non-political, often violent crimes including murder.

The appeal of her sentence is scheduled to be heard in Novosibirsk on March 24th. In the meantime, she shares a cell with hardened criminals pending a decision on her attorneys’ motion.

*. *. *

Thus, our roll call of political hostages has grown by one this week:

David Barnes
Ales Bialiatski (in Belarus)
Gordon Black
Andrei Chapiuk (in Belarus)
Robert Gilman
Stephen James Hubbard
Ksenia Karelina
Ihar Karney (in Belarus)
Vadim Kobzev
Uladzimir Labkovich (in Belarus)
Michael Travis Leake
Aleksei Liptser
Ihar Losik (in Belarus)
Daniel Martindale
Farid Mehralizada (in Azerbaijan)
Nika Novak
Marfa Rabkova (in Belarus)
Igor Sergunin
Dmitry Shatresov
Robert Shonov
Eugene Spector
Valiantsin Stafanovic (in Belarus)
Siarhei Tsikhanouski (in Belarus)
Laurent Vinatier
Robert Romanov Woodland
Vladislav Yesypenko (in Crimea)
Yuras Zyankovich (in Belarus)

*. *. *

And — like a broken record — I again offer this plea to Donald Trump in the White House . . . though I realize it will likely fall on deaf ears:

“Amidst all of the hubbub of your new administration, it is imperative that these innocent men and women not be forgotten. Negotiations for their safe release have been underway for some time. President Joe Biden succeeded in bringing home 16 innocent people on August 1st of last year, and you have added two others to that list. But you should be trying to do even more. Whatever else you do, this should be high on your list of priorities. The people you promised to represent are counting on you.”

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/9/25