On Russia’s naughty list
My predecessor Ruth Anderson used to joke that we weren’t working hard enough because we hadn’t been banned in Russia. Perhaps she was onto something. We’re still not banned there, as far as I know. Amnesty International though appears to have met the mark – or rather crossed a Kremlin red line. This week, Russian authorities labelled Amnesty an “undesirable organisation”, accusing it of being a “centre for the preparation of global Russophobic projects”. Any association with the group is now a criminal offence.
This is no empty label. Just ask Galina Timchenko, co-founder and CEO of the independent Russian-language news outlet Meduza. She’s now facing criminal charges for organising the activities of an “undesirable organisation” – namely, Meduza itself, which earned that designation back in January 2023 for its reporting on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The charges stem from her publishing two videos, one in September 2024 and another in March 2025, which authorities claim were designed to “foment protest sentiment”. If convicted, she could face six years in prison.
But it’s not just human rights organisations and independent journalists in the Kremlin’s crosshairs. This week, a Russian court fined tech giant Apple 10.5 million roubles (approximately $130,900) across four administrative cases. Three related to alleged violations of the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ “propaganda” laws, which were made even more draconian in 2023. The fourth was for allegedly failing to delete content at the request of the Russian authorities.
A journalist from Mediazona, one of Russia’s last remaining independent outlets, covered the court proceedings and offered a glimpse into how such hearings operate. Here’s a telling moment: “Our reporter notes that the judge read the decision at such a rapid pace it was virtually impossible to grasp the precise details of the claims. We then approached the court’s press secretary to request that a summary of the official court record be released for clarity. The response was terse: ‘The hearing is closed.’”
In the past, Apple has received criticism for its compliance with Russian censorship demands, from removing VPNs to restricting certain apps. These are moves it has defended as the price of staying in the country. Now it’s paying a different, more literal price.
As for Index, we remain unbanned – and unbowed. We continue to report on Russia in both our magazine and online, including recently interviewing artist and musician Yaroslav Smolev, and Nadezhda Skochilenko, mother of political prisoner and Index award winner Aleksandra Skochilenko. This isn’t actually about provoking the Kremlin. It’s about doing our job: telling the truth, and shining a light on one of the most authoritarian regimes in the world.
One year on from his death, Alexei Navalny’s legacy is still alive in Russia
“Dear Alexei, it’s been a year that darkness has fallen upon us – and yet, your ideas and your determination give us strength,” read a letter placed on opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s grave on 16 February 2025, marking the one-year anniversary of his death.
That day, more than 5,300 people attended the Borisovskoye Cemetery in Moscow where he is buried, according to the Beliy Schetchik (White Counter) movement. Despite temperatures reportedly dropping to a frosty -8 degrees Celsius, Navalny supporters waited in line outside the cemetery to pay their respects.
Artist and musician Yaroslav Smolev was one of the attendees. He told Index: “By joining in, not only did we get a chance to feel that we’re among like-minded people, but we also showed the [rest of the] Russian society what matters to us.”
In the days following Navalny’s death last year, Smolev spoke to Index for the first time. He had been arrested for staging a solo protest in support of the opposition leader in the centre of St Petersburg. Around that time, hundreds of mourners were being detained across the country, namely for laying flowers at improvised memorials.
Even so, people have returned to these locations this year to honour Navalny’s memory – and were predictably punished. According to the rights group OVD-Info, on the anniversary of Navalny’s death, at least 26 people were detained. In the city of Volgograd, for example, Alexander Yefimov from the Yabloko opposition party was jailed for 14 days for bringing flowers and a photo of Navalny to a memorial and placing them at a monument dedicated to victims of Soviet-era repression.
Carrying portraits of Putin’s main opponent – and even signs with his name on – became illegal after Navalny and his movement were declared “extremist” in 2021 and 2022.
For Smolev, Navalny is a role model who enabled him to overcome his fears. “He spoke with police officers in a natural and straightforward manner,” Smolev said. “There was not even a hint of fear in his behavior.” Smolev stressed that if it weren’t for Navalny, he would have never joined many peaceful protests, starting in 2017.
He added that if Navalny hadn’t gone as far as sacrificing his life “for his values and his ideals”, “the general public might not have realised that his lifelong battle was, in fact, heartfelt”. He was alluding to Navalny’s return to Russia in 2021 from Germany after recovering from a poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.
For Nadezhda Skochilenko – the mother of former Russian political prisoner and Index award winner Aleksandra Skochilenko – Navalny’s death caused “much pain”. Above all, she told Index, she thinks of him as “the son of his mother”, Lyudmila Navalnaya.
When Navalny died, Aleksandra was in jail. She had been sentenced to seven years in a penal colony for replacing supermarket pricing labels with anti-war messages. She was ultimately released as part of a prisoner exchange last summer.
Asked if the news of Navalny’s death increased her fear for the safety of political prisoners like her daughter, Nadezhda responded: “I’m too well-informed about what’s going on [in Russian] prisons. I’m frightened for everyone [who’s incarcerated] from the moment they’re arrested.”
She said that people die in jails, in pre-trial detention, and even during arrest. In 2024, eight political prisoners perished; one of them was pianist Pavel Kushnir, who spoke out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Over the past year, the pressure on political prisoners has increased, Nadezhda said. They are placed in solitary confinement “more frequently and for longer periods of time”. In these tiny punishment cells, people are not allowed to lie down during the day, among other restrictions.
To make matters worse, in many cases, proper medical treatment is not provided to political prisoners – a fact that “the authorities no longer try to conceal”, Nadezhda said. She is also concerned that minors accused of “terrorism” in politically-motivated cases are placed in pre-trial detention, instead of on house arrest.
She added that “on a regular basis” dissidents are denied access to letters sent by their supporters. Nevertheless, people keep writing to them – “the most useful and safest act [of resistance] within reach of everyone”, according to Smolev.
Despite the pressure of the authorities, supporters and families of jailed dissidents battle with prison administrations over human rights abuses. They also attend court hearings when they can – while some are still open to the public, many political trials are now closed, especially the ones of dissidents charged with treason, Nadezhda explained.
But acts of resistance “cannot be entirely suppressed”, she said – “hence “[Putin’s] regime responds with even more severe crackdown on dissent”.
A big week to remember
Index held its annual awards on Wednesday, the biggest night in its organisational calendar. This year another crop of amazing individuals enter the Index fold and we pledge to do as much as possible to help them fight oppression (whilst not forgetting about our previous winners – we will free Toomaj Salehi).
I want the names of the 2024 winners to become household ones, so allow me to repeat them here – Iranian journalist, Nasim Soltanbeygi; Palestinian human rights lawyer, Diala Ayesh; the Ugandan media outlet, Kuchu Times; Russian “artivist”, Aleksandra Skochilenko; and Evgenia Kara-Murza, the wife of former Russian political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was the powerhouse behind his release. Read more about the winners here.
It was a big week for Index. It was also a big week for Hong Kong. On Tuesday 45 of the pro-democracy activists HongKong47, as they’re known, were sentenced to between four and 10 years in prison. The Hong Kong authorities have tried to present this as justice and the usual Chinese Communist Party (CCP) nationalists came out of the shadows to attack people who claimed otherwise.
My response to these online trolls is that these people simply campaigned – legally and peacefully – to maintain some semblance of democracy and due process in a city once regarded as the most free in Asia. Fortunately, jail has not fully crushed their spirits. Joshua Wong playfully yelled from court as he was escorted away shouting “I love Hong Kong, bye bye”, whilst Tiffany Yuen wore a Liverpool FC top (the team’s anthem is You’ll Never Walk Alone).
With barely a day to process this grim news, Hong Kong media mogul and democracy activist Jimmy Lai was then in court to resume his case. I’ve not met Jimmy, but through a combination of meeting his remarkable son Sebastien, publishing his letters from prison and reading a lot about him, I feel as if I know him by this stage. Keir Starmer raised Jimmy’s case with Xi Jinping on Monday and I hope this signals a change in direction from the UK government, who’ve been far too quiet on this until now. It’s a disgrace that Jimmy has already spent so many years in jail.
I want to end with news that I heard via Fawzia Koofi, who was a prominent female MP in Afghanistan before she fled the country. It has not been reported internationally – school girls in certain areas of Afghanistan are failing year six on purpose because they are barred from attending the next school year. Repeating the same grade is the only way to stay in school.
The situation for girls and women in Afghanistan is so extreme and horrible that many people simply try not to think about it. But we can’t do that. At our Wednesday awards, a top UK journalist spoke to me specifically about what we can do to help in the UK. It’s a question the Index team often asks; we’ve done a lot of work in this area, including publishing journalism from and by Afghan women and pressing the UK government on its visa policy for Afghan journalists. But it’s clear that we need to do more.
Afghan women and girls are the most censored people in the world today. So if you’re in Afghanistan, reading this right now, know this – you’re not forgotten. A group of dedicated, engaged and influential people and organisations really care. Together we will try our hardest to help.