A Moscow court on Monday revoked the press license of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, whose editor-in-chief was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
“The Basmanny Court of Moscow invalidated the registration certificate of the printed version of Novaya Gazeta”.
The editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov, told reporters that the court’s decision was “political”.
Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor had previously said that Novaya Gazeta failed to secure its editorial charter within a required deadline.
Novaya Gazeta suspended publication in March after a crackdown on independent media amid the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.
Thus, some of its staff left Russia and launched a new publication from Europe.
The license decision comes less than a week after the death of the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, a major supporter of Novaya Gazeta, who donated part of his Nobel Peace Prize money in 1990 to establish the paper. .
Separately, six of Novaya Gazeta’s journalists have been killed in assassinations that the paper and human rights groups say were linked to their reporting.
Muratov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for his efforts to “protect freedom of expression”.