Moscow Prepares Counter-Sanctions on US Propaganda Operating in Russia
Restricting the work of the RT television channel, the US violate their own laws and freedom of speech principles, Maria Zakharova said at a meeting of the working group of the Federation Council. It discussed the attempts of the American media to intervene in Russia's affairs. Anton Podkovenko is reporting on the measures that might follow in response to the oppression of RT.
The US action towards the Russian media on US territory is a whole chain of glaring facts, with new ones emerging. America puts pressure on Russia Today TV channel and Sputnik news agency. Following the meeting in the Federation Council, the working group gave special recommendations.
Andrei Klimov, Chairman of the Federation Council Temporary Committee on Foreign Affairs: "Russian ministries and agencies are ordered to develop and begin to take reciprocal, strictly balanced measures within their mandates and based on legislation to the moves that can be implemented from October 17. We hope they'll change their mind, but if after October 17 concrete measures are taken against Russia Today and Sputnik, our ministries and agencies must take retaliation measures".
October 17 is truly the edge: the US Justice Department requires that the company serving RT America is registered as a "foreign agent" by this time. It means that the agencies will have to report all the inside information upon US request, including personal addresses and salaries of the staff who are already giving their notices.
Margarita Simonyan, RT editor-in-chief: "Nowhere else have we experienced such active pressure and virtually expulsion from the country, like in the US. The US Justice Ministry sent us a letter requiring us to recognize ourselves as foreign agents. To date we are obliged to execute ourselves and recognize ourselves as foreign agents before October 17. Our lawyers explained us that otherwise arrests of our employees and property will follow".
Margarita Simonyan says that the US intelligence is dealing with RT. In Google and in YouTube, Russia Today is the most quoted. But, contrary to logic, both of them are throwing RT out of the list of privileged partners.
Margarita Simonyan: "Particularly, Twitter submitted to Congress the advertising contracts we had concluded with it, valued at a sum of $275,000, and it's ridiculous to think that this sum is enough to elect the US President, with almost a billion spent on elections. Mass media present it as murky, semi-legal activity".
Now almost 1,000 journalists of 300 foreign media outlets are working in Russia. No one will limit their work, but the US will get a tit-for-tat response. For example, RT risks having a "foreign agent" sign during airtime, we can easily put the same on the US-funded TV channels.
Maria Zakharova, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson: "It's crucial for us to prove our commitment to the freedom of speech and the fact that it's impossible to limit the activity of the foreign mass media working here, however difficult the landscape and the relations are as a whole. Nevertheless, certain provisions of our legislation allow us to impose retaliatory limits on foreign mass media journalists of those countries that had already imposed special restrictions on the professional activities of Russian journalists".
Also, it's planned to gather experts from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tax and law enforcement agencies to understand whether the existing legislative mechanisms are sufficient to adequately respond to US pressure in the media and, if not, to develop new ones. And it was also decided to officially draw the US ambassador's attention to the situation.
Andrei Klimov: "We decided to address the Russian and international public to show that what we're doing is exclusively retaliatory measures, that these measures will be balanced, adequate, and targeted. And they are, I stress, a forced step".
The new notion of interference in Russian internal affairs will be introduced to Russian legislation. By December 1, the Federation Council Commission will prepare their first report.
The Federation Council stresses that now the US pressure is focused exclusively on Russian media: RT and Sputnik. Neither the German Deutsche Welle nor the British BBC fall under the foreign agents law, for instance, which means that the US violates its own principles of freedom of speech, which it is supposedly teaching to the entire world.
Anton Takovenko, Anton Basikyan and Dmitry Matrosov for Vesti.