The whereabouts of former RFE/RL contributor Nika Novak appear to have been re-established after her lawyer said last week that she disappeared from a Siberian correctional colony where she was held.
According to a social media post tied to Novak’s friends and family, the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service sent a letter to her lawyer Yulia Kuznetsova saying that she is still at Penal Colony No. 11 in Russia’s Irkutsk region where she was transferred to on March 1.
Kuznetsova has not confirmed this on her public social media accounts and she was not immediately available to answer RFE/RL’s request for comment.
Alarm over where the 33-year-old Novak was being held came on November 30 when Kuznetsova said she called the colony for information on her location but was rejected and told to submit a request, which she subsequently did.
Kuznetsova then said in a social media post that it appeared Novak was being transferred from Penal Colony No. 11, though her destination was unknown.
But according to the claim from the account linked to Novak’s close acquaintances, the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service has confirmed that she remains in the same penal colony, although RFE/RL has not been able to independently verify this information.
Novak was handed a four-year sentence after a closed-door trial for “confidential cooperation with a foreign state, international or foreign organization” — a sentence she and rights organizations consider unjust.
She was transferred to the Siberian correctional colony in March, where she complained about torture-like conditions before going on a hunger strike.
Novak said she was placed in solitary confinement there for refusing to give media interviews about how “everything is fine in the colony and the prisoners are happy” and for refusing to work as a seamstress.
Before her arrest, Novak had worked for ChitaMedia and was editor in chief of the Zab.ru website. She contributed to programs by RFE/RL’s Siberia.Realities in 2022.
Her case marked the first time that a journalist was sentenced under Article 275.1 of Russia’s criminal code, a crime that was only introduced in 2022 in the months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Rights experts have criticized the conception and wording of the law, while Human Rights Watch called the legislation “reminiscent of the Soviet-era ban on contacts with foreigners” in its 2023 World Report.
On July 22, 2024, leading Russian human rights group Memorial recognized Novak as a political prisoner.
Her detention has also been condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Coalition for Women in Journalism, and the International Press Institute, which said Nika’s sentencing was “made possible by Russia’s continued instrumentalization of its own legislation with the aim of repressing independent journalists and other critical voices.”
