US authorities and their NATO allies have criticized Russia’s Foreign Media Agents Act, which they say restricts Russians’ access to independent journalism.
The State Department’s statement on media freedom in Russia emphasizes that media freedom is “vital for the effective functioning of free and open societies and essential for the protection of human rights.” The authors of the statement condemned the “Russian government’s persecution of independent journalists and media.”
As an example, they cited the detention of journalists during rallies in support of politician Alexei Navalny, the searches of the student publication DOXA and the arrest of four of its journalists, the recognition of the Project as an undesirable organization, the arrest of a freelance journalist Radio Liberty (registered in the register of foreign media agents) Vladislav Esipenko, expulsion of the BBC journalist Sarah Rainsford, as well as the inclusion in the list of foreign media agents of the Bellingcat project, Meduza, Vital Stories, VTimes, The Insider, Mediazon and the OVD-Info sites, the Dozhd TV channel, the République project and others, writes Kommersant.
“We urge the Russian Federation … to respect and guarantee media freedom and the safety of journalists. We call on the Russian government to stop suppressing independent voices, end politically motivated prosecutions against journalists and the media, and release all unjustly detainees, ”says the document, which, in addition to the United States, France , Germany and Great Britain, was also signed by the representatives of Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, from the Netherlands, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.
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