Skip to main content
Home

Main navigation

  • Top stories
  • Health
  • Crime
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Tech
  • Culture
  • Sports
  • Weird
  • 1-1-2
Image
Eliot Higgins
Eliot Higgins - Credit: Superbass / Wikimedia Commons - License: CC-BY-SA
Politics
Business
Bellingcat
investigative journalist
Russia
foreign agent
Eliot Higgins
flight MH17
Eastern Ukraine
Syrian Civil War
Saturday, 9 October 2021 - 13:35
Share this:
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • linkedin
  • whatsapp
  • reddit

Russia classifies investigative journalism group Bellingcat as a foreign agent

The Russian Ministry of Justice has designated the critical investigative journalist collective Bellingcat as a foreign agent. Nine journalists, including one of whom worked for BBC Russia, were given the same label.

“Russia considers Bellingcat such a threat that we have been declared a foreign agent,” Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins wrote on Twitter. Bellingcat moved its headquarters from the United Kingdom to Amsterdam three years ago. Higgins wondered how it could be that an NGO without any Russian workers or offices can be declared a foreign agent there.

His journalistic collective has published pieces in which is Russia is associated with, among other topics, the downing of flight MH17 killing all 298 passengers and the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalni and former Russian spy Sergei Skripal. Bellingcat also covered the Syrian civil war and the war in Eastern Ukraine.

Organizations that are designated as foreign agents in Russia are under increased scrutiny by the authorities and must state in their publications that they are labeled as such. The name is used for what Russian authorities believe to be organizations financed by foreign countries and engaged in political activities against the Russian authorities.

In 2019, Bellingcat won the Dutch public communication prize, Machiavelli for their innovative method of investigative journalism.

However, unlike the majority of other "foreign agents", Bellingcat has neither a legal nor physical presence in Russia. We are a foundation registered in the Netherlands without staff in Russia.

— Bellingcat (@bellingcat) October 8, 2021

Reporting by ANP and NL Times

Follow us:

Latest stories

  • Police's incident-plagued National Unit to be split into two
  • KLM pays off coronavirus State Aid
  • Inflation expected to stabilize at 2%, with room for wage increases
  • Schiphol: Fewer cuts needed in August as capacity problems improve
  • Netherlands bans celebrities from gambling adverts
  • Helmets mandatory for scooter riders in Netherlands from 2023

Top stories

  • MP's want to lower healthcare deductible, Cabinet wants to freeze it
  • Thousands of underage kids recruited into crime in Netherlands: Report
  • Police prevent farmers’ jail break attempt in Apeldoorn
  • Police release suspects held in Tefaf jewellery heist
  • Farmers threaten to protest at Dutch airports; Police claim "attempted manslaughter" in earlier violence
  • Dutch Caribbean braces for tropical storm Bonnie with curfew, closed schools

© 2012-2022, NL Times, All rights reserved.

Footer menu

  • Privacy
  • Contact
  • Partner content