RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service: Radio Azatliq
Radio Azatliq is the only major international news provider reporting in the Tatar, Bashkir, and Russian languages to audiences in the Russia's multi-ethnic, Muslim-majority Volga-Ural region.
About
- Alternative to Russian state media in local languages in the Volga-Ural region since 1953.
- Despite censorship, entirely digital; covers regional, local, and stories under-reported in state media.
- Reports on Russia’s policies toward ethnic and religious minorities.
- Russian-language regional website Idel.Realii covers public corruption, religious extremism, environmental issues.
- Multimedia project “Eide!Online” teaches modern Tatar language online in response to increased Kremlin pressure to limit use of Tatar.
- Produced special visual project on Russian war casualties. Published book "Saying No to War,” featuring 40 Russians telling stories of resistance amid harsh sentences.
- Published investigative reports on "ethnic battalions" Russian regime formed to fight in Ukraine.
- Monitors and maps rising Chinese influence with microsite.
- Four million people viewed Service’s project about domestic violence and its effects.
Impact
January – December 2022
- Website: 2.1 million visits; 3.2 million page views
- Facebook: 26.3 million video views; 3.9 million engaged users
- YouTube: 3 million video views; 87,000 subscribers
- Instagram: 2.1 million video views; 31,462 followers
Updated: April 2023
Media Climate
- Journalists frequently subject to harassment and threats; many freelancers forced to leave country for their safety.
- Multiple contributors labeled foreign agents. Police in Kazan, Tatarstan searched homes of several freelancers and briefly detained them in August.
- Websites and social network accounts blocked or restricted.
- Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index ranks Russia 155th out of 180 countries.