CPJ, partners call on UN Working Group to issue opinion on imprisoned Russian journalist 

The Committee to Protect Journalists and nine partner organizations urged the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on November 12, 2025, to issue an opinion on the case of imprisoned Russian journalist Nika Novak.

The Press Freedom Center at the National Press Club recently filed submissions to the working group requesting an opinion finding that Novak’s continued detention by the Russian government is arbitrary and violates international law.

Novak is serving a four-year prison sentence in the Siberian region of Irkutsk after being convicted on November 26, 2024, on charges of “confidential cooperation with a foreign organization” stemming from her independent journalism for RFE/RL. She was detained by Russian authorities in December 2023.

The joint statement highlights Novak’s worsening detention conditions. She has been placed in isolation and solitary confinement several times in recent months and has begun a hunger strike — her third — to protest her circumstances.

Read the full letter here.