Since 2011, Carola Schneider has been in Moscow with interruptions, but now she has to leave the country: The Russian Foreign Ministry has ordered the head of the ORF-Correspondent offices in Moscow withdrew their accreditation on Wednesday. They are no longer allowed to report and must leave the country soon.
This means that after the expulsion of Maria Knips-Witting just over two weeks ago, no ORF-Journalists are no longer represented in Russia. The ORF sees in a press release an “arbitrary act against independent reporting”, the Austrian Foreign Ministry calls the step “unprecedented” and condemned it as “unjustified and unacceptable”. The chargé d’affaires of the Russian Federation’s embassy has already been summoned to the Foreign Ministry, where the protest against this step has been clearly communicated to him.
The Vorarlberg native headed the ORFoffice in Moscow. “The ORF acknowledges Russia’s decision, but cannot understand it at all,” says the public media house. Schneider has reported from Moscow “highly competently” for many years and has always complied with all laws. She will now – like Knips-Witting – initially report on Russia from the foreign editorial office in Vienna “in the usual quality”. Meanwhile, the ORF for new accreditations.
The move comes just one day after authorities ORF made inaccessible from Russia. Because the EU has banned four Russian propaganda media, Moscow blocked access to 81 media outlets from the EU on Tuesday, including the ORF and you24.
On Wednesday, the trial against the journalist Evan Gershkovich from the US daily newspaper Wall Street Journalwho has been in prison for 15 months on suspicion of espionage.
In Russia, many media outlets that report critically on the policies of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin and thousands of websites are blocked on the Internet. Like the blocked European media outlets, they can only be accessed using a VPN server, i.e. via a network connection that cannot be viewed from the outside and with which users can virtually change their location. Many journalists are in prison in Russia for allegedly discrediting the Russian army.