Russian court orders arrest of France 24 journalist

Russian court orders arrest of French news channel journalist Catherine Norris Trent France 24 accused of illegally entering the western Kursk region, the national news agency said on Tuesday TASS. She joined the region alongside the Ukrainian army to produce a report. The proceedings were initiated in absentia and the orders mean the journalists would be arrested if they traveled to Russia.

In a press release, France 24 specifies that his journalist “was invited by the Ukrainian government to go to the territory it had just occupied”an action “protected in accordance with the rights recognized for journalists by the Geneva Convention and international law”.

Russia initiated criminal proceedings in early October against a number of Western journalists who reported from Kursk, where Ukrainian troops crossed the border on August 6 and invaded an occupied part of Russian territory.

Five years in prison

Beyond the case of the British journalist Catherine Norris Trent, the Swiss journalist Kurt Pelda, correspondent for the Swiss media CH Mediawas also accused of having “illegally crossed the border of the Russian Federation in the Kursk region”according to a press release from the FSB.

The Ukrainian army launched a surprise offensive in this border region on August 6, the first by a foreign army in Russia since the Second World War, before a Russian counter-offensive. In this context, Russia regularly announces the opening of investigations against foreign journalists who have visited the occupied zone, and a dozen journalists have been targeted to date by accusations of this type.

Proceedings were notably opened against journalists from the American television channel CNNfrom the Italian channel RAI or even German German wave. The journalists targeted by these investigations do not appear to be in Russia but face up to five years in prison there, according to the Russian Criminal Code.