Russia puts British reporter on banned list

Reuters

Russia has put a British reporter for the Guardian newspaper on a list of people banned from entering the country because he entered a closed security zone without permission, a law enforcement source said on Tuesday.

Guardian correspondent Luke Harding was refused entry at passport control in Moscow this weekend, had his visa annulled and was put on a plane back to Britain, his newspaper said.

The move to ban Harding is the latest episode in a tense period of relations between Russia and Britain dating to the 2006 killing of Kremlin critic and ex-security officer Alexander Litvinenko in London with a rare radioactive isotope.

Russia refuses to extradite the suspect to Britain.

The law enforcement source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Harding “has been put on a so-called blacklist of Russia’s law enforcement structures”.

Such lists are normally compiled by the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), immigration services or federal prosectors.

The source said Harding had crossed without official permission into an area in Russia’s insurgency-plagued North Caucasus where federal forces were conducting a “counter-terrorist operation”. He declined to give details.

The Guardian said that Harding may have been expelled for reporting on WikiLeaks diplomatic cables that contained unflattering descriptions of Russia’s leadership, although Harding was not alone in reporting on those cables.

Foreign journalists must seek permission from authorities to enter an area designated a “counter-terrorist operation” zone. The designation can last from a few hours to several days or more, and is usually applied in an area where security forces are searching for or fighting alleged insurgents.

In the spring of 2010, Harding wrote an article about the death of four civilians in the North Caucasus who were killed after they allegedly wandered into a counter-terrorist operation zone while picking wild garlic.

In another recent example of deteriorating relations, Britain said in December that it had expelled a diplomat from Russia’s embassy in London for espionage and that Russia had responded in kind.

In 2005, Bill Browder, who once had around $4 billion invested in Russia through his Hermitage fund, was banned from entering the country.

The U.S.-born British investor has accused the Russian government of stealing his firms and killing his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who died in jail in 2009 from what Browder says was torture. Government officials deny these accusations. займ срочно без отказов и проверок микрозаймы онлайн https://zp-pdl.com/get-quick-online-payday-loan-now.php https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php hairy girls