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world news Diahuebs 15 aPRiL 2021

Russia targets student magazine with raids, criminal charges

(AP) — Russian authori- Kremlin. portant for young people and
ties levied criminal charg- will continue to stand up for
es Wednesday against four The video talked about the their rights,” the magazine’s
young editors of an online pressure school and univer- statement read.
student magazine that sity students faced before the
had coverage about the protests and described threats The charges against the four
nationwide protests sup- of expulsion for participat- editors carry potential crimi-
porting jailed opposition ing in the demonstrations nal penalties of up to three
leader Alexei Navalny ear- unlawful. Russia’s media and years in prison. They are part
lier this year. internet watchdog, Roskom- of the same criminal case
nadzor, demanded DOXA Russian authorities opened
Police raided the Mos- delete the video several days against Navalny's chief strat-
cow apartments of the four after it ran in late January, al- egist, Leonid Volkov, who
DOXA magazine editors as leging that it contained infor- was accused of encouraging
well as the apartments of two mation encouraging minors minors to take part in unau-
of the editors’ parents and the to take part in illegal activity. thorized rallies, according to
magazine’s offices. The four Damir Gainutdinov, head of
were taken to Russia's Inves- The magazine complied, but the Net Freedoms Project of
tigative Committee for ques- filed a lawsuit to contest the the Agora human rights orga- Moscow; many carried ban-
tioning and charged with en- order, with the four editors nization. ners saying “We are DOXA” Novaya Gazeta was ordered
couraging minors to take part — Armen Aramyan, Natalya and “Get your hands away to retract the story as a re-
in illegal activity, according to Tyshkevich, Vladimir Metel- Volkov, who left Russia in from DOXA.” sult of a civil court case, but
DOXA and a human rights kin and Alla Gutnikova — 2019, has rejected the charg- a criminal case in the matter
group involved in their de- among the plaintiffs. es, and on Wednesday relayed The crackdown on DOXA has been pending for years.
fense. “unconditional respect and came several days after police
DOXA said Wednesday that support” to DOXA's team searched the apartment of a Agora's Gainutdinov said that
DOXA said the law enforce- the video contained “no calls in a Facebook post. Agora is prominent investigative jour- while the two events were
ment actions were connected for unlawful actions — we providing legal representa- nalist, Roman Anin, chief not directly connected, they
to a video the magazine ran were saying that young peo- tion for three of the four edi- editor of the Vazhniye Istorii clearly show that “coverage
about the January protests ple shouldn’t be afraid to ex- tors. website. The website said the of some important issues —
organized in support of Na- press their opinion.” raid likely involved a 2016 protests, corruption, and so
valny. Mass protests engulfed A court on Wednesday af- story Anin wrote for the in- on — is perceived as hostile
cities across Russia's 11 time “The pressure the journalist ternoon was set to decide on dependent newspaper Nova- criminal activity, so none of
zones for two weekends in a community has faced recent- pre-trial restrictions for the ya Gazeta that alleged a lavish the journalists who honest-
row in January and were the ly is unprecedented, but we DOXA editors. Dozens of super-yacht belonged to Igor ly do their job can feel safe
biggest in recent years, pos- won’t stop our work. We will supporters gathered in front Sechin, head of Russian state now.”
ing a major challenge for the continue to cover what’s im- of the courthouse in central oil company Rosneft.

We need to plan: UK travel urges clarity from government

(AP) — Leaders from Britain's two of their return to England. They
aviation industry joined forces would only need to quarantine if they Aviation minister Robert Courts “We understand from a health per-
Wednesday to urge the British receive a positive result. said Wednesday that the government spective it’s a proceed with caution
government to ensure that popu- should be able to give more details time .... but if we err to much on the
lar European destinations face The government has said it will cat- about how countries are character- side of caution then you will have
the least onerous coronavirus egorize destinations — green, amber ized in early May so the industry — some very devastating effects on the
travel restrictions when holidays or red — after analyzing vaccination and potential holidaymakers — can travel sector and the aviation sector,”
are allowed again. rates, coronavirus cases and the prev- start putting plans in place. he added.
alence of variants of concern. Given
Under the government's new traf- the metrics being applied, countries “We are giving as much notice as we The aviation industry around the
fic light system for England, travel like the United States and Israel are can,” he said. world has been hammered over the
to countries in the lowest green cat- expected to be on the green list im- past year with passenger numbers
egory could be opened up to quar- mediately, while much of Europe Lockdown restrictions are being down around 95% from pre-pan-
antine-free travel from May 17. Ar- could be placed on the amber list, eased across the U.K. after a stringent demic levels.
rivals would be required to take a which would require travelers to self- winter lockdown and the rapid roll-
pre-departure test as well as the gold isolate at home for potentially ten out of coronavirus vaccines has seen Travel to Europe will play a crucial
standard PCR test on or before day days on their return. coronavirus cases — and deaths — fall role in the industry's recovery so any
sharply. However, given that previous delay in putting popular holiday des-
waves of the pandemic have largely tinations in the green category would
been blamed on too-lax border poli- spell further financial difficulties.
cies, the government has indicated it
will take a cautious approach. EasyJet Chief Executive Johan Lund-
gren said he “would expect almost all
With much of Europe in the midst major European countries” to be put
of a surge of the pandemic and lock- in the low-risk category immediately
down restrictions being re-imposed, and that the airline will be able to fly
there are concerns that popular Euro- 20% of its normal schedule between
pean destinations, such as the beach April and June.
resorts of the Costa del Sol in Spain
or the Greek islands may not make Lundgren said he's optimistic that
the green list. many of easyJet's core markets in Eu-
rope will make the cut as the rollout
“We would like to see the green cat- of vaccines picks up pace.
egory as expansive as possible,” Chris
Garton, chief solutions officer at “I wouldn’t see a reason why you
Heathrow Airport, told lawmakers in wouldn’t have the majority of the
the House of Commons. countries of Europe in there," he said.