Russian law enforcement officials on Thursday detained a Kazakh national who works as a journalist in the Ural Mountains city of Perm, his employer Properm.ru said.
Journalist Vladislav Ivanenko was arrested early Thursday at his home in Perm and taken first to a local police station and then to a temporary detention facility for foreign nationals, according to the Properm.ru news outlet.
Ivanenko has lived and worked in Perm for the past eight years, but was notified that his Russian residency permit had been revoked shortly before being detained.
“The editorial team of Properm.ru considers the grounds for canceling [Ivanenko’s] residency permit… fictitious and baseless,” Properm.ru said in a statement issued Thursday.
Properm.ru did not say why Russian authorities might have chosen to revoke Ivanenko’s residency permit but noted that the journalist has no past criminal record and that he will appeal the decision.
“We consider the actions of law enforcement authorities illegal and excessive and demand them to stop pressuring [our] employee and the newsroom,” the outlet wrote.
Properm.ru’s editorial team said that, as of Thursday afternoon, they were unable to contact Ivanenko.
