A prominent Russian investigative journalist charged with drug dealing after four grams of a synthetic drug called mephedrone were found in his backpack, Moscow police say.
In this handout photo taken on Thursday, June 6, 2019 and released by Meduza, Ivan Golunov stands at a police station in Moscow, Russia. Police said on Friday that Ivan Golunov, who works for the independent website Meduza, was detained on Thursday with four grams of methylephedrine on him, and that drugs were also found at his home. The journalist now faces charges of dealing.
Meduza’s director general Galina Timchenko told The Associated Press that Golunov, one of the most prominent investigative journalists in Russia, was beaten while in detention and denied medical tests that would show he has not handled drugs. Timchenko said she has photos that show the impact on the left side of his face.Golunov is due to appear in court on Saturday. His lawyer said that his client was not allowed to contact his family or lawyer for 12 hours after he was detained.
Meduza was founded in 2014 by a group of journalists who left a popular Russian news website after their editor was fired. The website is based in Riga, Latvia, as the journalists fear that an increasing wave of media censorship and restrictive internet laws in Russia make any editorial office there vulnerable to government pressure. While most of Meduza’s staff is based in Riga, special correspondents like Golunov are working in Russia.
“What has been published doesn’t look like an apartment: there’s a cement floor, wood on the walls,” he said. Golunov rose to prominence in recent years with his corruption investigations into Moscow’s city government and the crime-ridden funeral market. The allegations of a thriving drugs business run by an investigative reporter stunned Russia’s journalist community, long accustomed to arbitrary detentions and violence, and raised concerns about police actions.
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