US and its allies criticize violations of media freedom in Russia | News from Germany about Russia | DW

The United States and its allies criticized Russia for its crackdown on independent media, calling on it to defend free speech. A joint statement released on Thursday evening, October 28, by 17 countries, including the United States, Canada, Germany and Ukraine, indicated that Russia’s stringent new labeling requirements for messages published by “foreign agents” indicate “unequivocal attempts to block Russians from accessing journalism “.

The statement notes that over the past four months Russia has included dozens of journalists and media outlets in the list of “foreign agents”. According to the authors of the document, Moscow is trying to close the branches of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty in Russia, accusing them of more than 600 violations and imposing fines on them totaling $ 4.4 million, and expelled the correspondent of the British media company BBC Sarah Rainsford from the country. …

Detention of journalists

The United States and its allies also criticized the Russian authorities for the detention of journalists who covered the rallies in support of Alexei Navalny, noting that ten reporters are being imprisoned just for doing their job.

“We call on the Russian Federation to fulfill its international obligations in the field of human rights, to respect and guarantee freedom of the media and the safety of journalists. We call on the Russian government to stop repressions against independent voices, politically motivated persecution of journalists and the media, and to release all those who were unjustly detained,” said in a joint statement.

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• 

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  Author: Elena Barysheva, Mikhail Bushuev, Elena Gunkel

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