This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Russian prosecutors have launched an investigation into the opposition television channel Dozhd – or TV Rain – for alleged extremism, as part of an intensifying crackdown on independent media outlets.

Rain’s owner, Natalya Sindeyeva, said on Facebook that local prosecutors had ordered the station to submit to checks on whether it was complying with anti-extremism legislation, as well as licensing and labour laws.

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Friday’s notice said the channel was being checked at the request of unnamed “citizens”, but did not say what programming was deemed extremist.

Under Russian law, media outlets accused of broadcasting or publishing content that is deemed to incite or justify extremism can face a fine of up to 1m rubles (£9,600).

The channel has been ordered to produce a number of legal documents, as well as accounting records. The network’s studio was checked for compliance with fire safety regulations, said the presenter Maria Makeyeva.

“I don’t think prosecutors waited for some kind of request [to launch the investigation],” Makeyeva told the Open Russia pro-democracy foundation, suggesting they were following official instructions.

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Representatives of Russia’s dwindling liberal-leaning media outlets were indignant at the inquiry, saying it upped pressure on the last independent voices in the country.

“It is clear that the probe against Dozhd is absolutely political in nature,” Alexey Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of the liberal Ekho Moskvy radio station, wrote on Twitter.

Rain, which gives airtime to opponents of Vladimir Putin, has had previous run-ins with authorities. Last year the channel was forced out of its headquarters and had to temporarily move into a cramped apartment belonging to a staff member.

Rain lost 80% of its 15 million-strong audience in January 2014 after leading cable providers dropped the station from their packages. The ostensible reason was a poll run by the station asking whether Leningrad (now St Petersburg) should have surrendered to Nazi Germany during the second world war rather than hold out under siege for nearly two and a half years.