Updates with Novaya Gazeta statement.
A Moscow court on Monday revoked the print license of independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, whose chief editor last year was co-awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
“The Basmanny court of Moscow invalidated the registration certificate of the print version of Novaya Gazeta,” the outlet said on social media.
Novaya Gazeta’s chief editor, Dmitry Muratov, told reporters the court decision was “political.”
“The newspaper was killed today,” Novaya Gazeta said Monday in an official statement following the court ruling.
“Today [they] killed our colleagues again, who had been already killed by this state for the fulfillment of their professional duty,” the editorial said.“[But] it [the newspaper] was, is and will be.”
Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor had previously said Novaya Gazeta failed to provide its editorial statute within a required timeframe.
Novaya Gazeta suspended publication in March following a crackdown on independent media amid the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.
Some of its staff left Russia and launched a new edition from Europe.
The license decision comes less than a week after the death of the Soviet Union’s last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, a key supporter of Novaya Gazeta who donated a part of his 1990 Nobel Peace Prize money to set up the newspaper.
Six of Novaya Gazeta’s reporters have been killed in assassinations that the newspaper and human rights groups say were connected to their reporting.
Muratov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for efforts to” safeguard freedom of expression.”
AFP contributed reporting.
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