BBC, CNN and Bloomberg were the first media on a list that RTVE, Atresmedia and Efe have joined, which also temporarily suspend their news coverage
President Vladimir Putin has decided to silence any hint of protest against his policy and against the war unleashed against Ukraine. He has just enacted new legal measures against those who seek to inform public opinion of what is happening in the neighboring country. From this Saturday, a series of amendments to the Russian Penal Code came into force that will punish the dissemination of “false information” or “disinformation”, calls for the application of sanctions against Russia or any reference to the Russian Army in “degrading” terms.
The penalties for failing to comply with the new regulations, which were urgently approved by the Russian Parliament and signed on Friday by Putin himself, can reach 15 years in prison and will affect not only the media, but also individuals who use blogs, social networks or any other support. The Russian authorities are thus reinforcing their arsenal in the war they have declared on free information.
The result is that numerous foreign news outlets with correspondents in Moscow, such as CNN, CBS News, the BBC, ABC News and Bloomberg, have decided to temporarily suspend their reporting activity in Russia. The Spanish public media RTVE and EFE have also done so, which will continue to cover the events in this Slavic country, but from outside. The last to join that list was the private group Atresmedia (Antena 3, La Sexta and Onda Cero, among others).
“This legislation appears to criminalize the process of independent journalism. It leaves us with no choice but to temporarily suspend the work of all BBC News journalists and their support staff inside Russia while we assess the full implications of this unwanted phenomenon,” BBC Director General Tim Davie said in a statement. broadcast on the chain. The president of the parliamentary committee for Information of the Duma (Lower House of the Russian Parliament), Alexander Jínshtein, warned on Friday that “this law applies to all citizens, not only those of Russia.”
For her part, the RTVE correspondent Érika Reija pointed out this afternoon that she had just left Russia “with great sadness” and thanked all those who have sent her “strength” in recent weeks, the most difficult without a doubt of all my life. lifetime”. »With great sadness, but convinced that it is a necessary step in the face of the possible criminalization of our work«, she added on her Twitter account.
“Security reasons”
This Saturday, several European television stations also decided to suspend their activities in Russia, including the German public channels ARD and ZDF, together with the Italian RAI, alleging “security reasons” and “freedom of the press.” The British BBC did so the day before, although it stressed that it will continue to offer its international information service in Russian thanks to the work of employees located in other countries.
Following the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has also tightened the screws on some local media outlets it considers critical of the Putin regime. Among others, it limited access to the charismatic Echo of Moscow radio station and to the Internet television channel Dozhd -also known as TV Rain-, due to alleged “false information” about the campaign in the neighboring country, after which both media announced its closure.
In turn, the European Union has also banned the broadcasting of the Russian state media Sputnik and Russia Today (RT) on EU territory. The Commission (EC) considers that these platforms “are part of Russia’s war machine” and holds them responsible for spreading “Putin’s lies”. Something similar has happened in the field of well-known social networks such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, where these platforms have been restricted and even their accounts have been blocked.
Before that, Russia blocked Facebook and slowed down access to Twitter in order to prevent the population from being aware of what is really happening in Ukraine after the invasion. The measure is part of the repressive dynamic that the Kremlin has been applying with special viciousness since 2020.
The BBC already started having access problems this week as did Deutsche Welle (DW), the independent Russian-language website Meduza, based in Latvia, Radio Svoboda and Voice of America.
A Sky News crew shot by a Russian patrol in Ukraine
British Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay and camera operator Richie Mockler were shot during an ambush by a Russian reconnaissance squad. The events took place last Monday while they were driving to the city of Bucha, located 30 kilometers from the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. The two men managed to get out of the car onto a nearby embankment, then run away as they heard gunshots behind them.
“The first round broke the windshield. Cameraman Richie Mockler huddled in the front passenger footwell. So we were under complete attack,” the correspondent himself reported in a first-person chronicle published this Friday. Both he and his camera managed to survive thanks to the bulletproof vests they were wearing, although they were slightly injured.
“We were convinced that the shooters would come to finish us off. A door opened and three (Ukrainian) guards beckoned us to enter their workshop,” said Ramsay, who confirmed that the rest of the night they were in the factory waiting for a rescue from the British chain. Finally, several members of the local police escorted them to a safe place.
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