Russia has withdrawn the press accreditation of NOS correspondent Geert Groot Koerkamp. The broadcaster reported this on Thursday. Groot Koerkamp and his cameraman are the last remaining Dutch journalists in the country. Due to the withdrawal of his press accreditation, Groot Koerkamp can no longer perform his work as a correspondent.
On Wednesday morning, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zacharova announced in a press conference that the press accreditation of a Dutch journalist had been withdrawn. It had not yet been confirmed that it was Groot Koerkamp.
Although Zacharova said on Wednesday that the journalist in question would also be deported from the country, the NOS now reports that Groot Kurkamp will be allowed to stay in Russia. Groot Koerkamp has lived and worked in Moscow for thirty years and is also a correspondent for de Volkskrant and the Flemish broadcaster VRT.
‘Intimidation’
According to Moscow, the decision to withdraw the accreditation of Groot Kurkamp is a response to the expulsion by the Netherlands of a correspondent from the Russian state news agency Ria Novosti. According to her, spokesperson Zacharova calls the continued “intimidation and discrimination” of Russian journalists in the Netherlands unacceptable for Russia.
According to Zacharova, Russia could reconsider this decision if the Dutch government creates “appropriate working conditions” for Ria Novosti’s journalist.
If Great Kurkamp does not indeed have to formally leave Russia, his situation corresponds to that of the correspondent of the French newspaper Le Monde. After twenty years of correspondentship, the Russian authorities withdrew Benjamin Quénelle’s press accreditation at the beginning of last year.
Although Quénelle was not deported, he was no longer able to practice his profession and left Russia. Le Monde spoke at the time of a ‘disguised expulsion’.
Most Dutch news media, including NRCwithdrew their correspondents from Russia after the start of the war in Ukraine. Safety was the main reason for this. After the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the State Duma passed a law imposing long prison sentences for spreading “fake news” about the war.
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