On the night of March 3, unknown persons sent the following message to the “Important Stories” website via the feedback form: “Let your nits from the streets (name) and (name) not sleep peacefully! Hello to them!” Journalists of the publication Alesya Marokhovskaya and Irina Dolinina actually lived on these streets at that time.
On August 24, the journalists received a second threat. The sender made it clear that he knew about Marokhovskaya’s move: “Rest assured, you can’t hide from us anywhere. We know your scum ran away like a rat in horror, we will find it in another place. She has nowhere to go and will have to answer for all the lies and evil. For every word spoken to her. We will find her wherever she walks with her wheezing dog. None of you can escape anywhere else.”
In September, Dolinina and Marokhovskaya were supposed to fly to the Swedish city of Gothenburg for an international conference for investigative journalists. The editors received the following message via the feedback form: “You know who to tell this to: they can’t go to Gothenburg. Even for a day. They know where to look for them. Believe me.”
The next day another message came from the same sender: “Take it seriously. I don’t want to scare. I want to help. Tickets, hotel – everything is known. These are not just words…”. After that, all the details of booking air tickets and hotels addressed to the journalists were sent to the mail.
The editors believe that those who threatened most likely work for the Russian government, and they also have constant access to data on passenger flights within the European Union.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”