The Committee for the Protection of Journalists urged not to persecute Radio Liberty

The Russian authorities must stop the persecution of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and stop obstructing the work of mass media by assigning them the status of “undesirable organizations”. This was announced by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists.

“The desire of the Russian authorities to persecute Radio Liberty has deep roots,” the organization said in a statement.

The Committee to Protect Journalists also notes that the radio station has always provided objective information to the Russian audience.

Acting President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Steven Kapus, commenting on the earlier listing of the corporation on the list of “undesirables” in Russia, called the decision another example of the fact that the Russian government sees truthful journalistic materials as an existential threat.

The general director of DW, Peter Limburg, condemned the repression against Radio Liberty. He named the decision of the Russian authorities is another step that narrows even more “the already very limited freedom of speech and the press in the country.”

In turn, the representative of the foreign policy department of the European Union, Peter Stano named The recognition of Radio Liberty as an “undesirable organization” is another attack on freedom of speech in Russia. According to Stano, Russia uses legislation on foreign agents and undesirable organizations to repress and suppress critical voices.

It became known on February 20 that the Russian Ministry of Justice included Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in the list of foreign and international non-governmental organizations whose activities are considered undesirable on the territory of the country.

The register includes organizations whose activities, according to the Russian authorities, pose a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order, security, or defense capability of the country. Inclusion in the list means that the organization is prohibited from operating in the country, and Russian citizens are prohibited from cooperating with it under threat of criminal prosecution.

According to the International Committee to Protect Journalists, since 2021 the Russian authorities have declared dozens of media organizations “undesirable”. The list includes several structures that were forced to leave Russia and that call themselves independent newsrooms: they include the TV channel “Dozhd”, publications “Meduza”, “Novaya gazeta Evropa”, “Vazhnye istorii”, The Insider, “Proekt”, investigative resource Bellingcat.

• Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is an independent American media corporation funded by a grant from Congress through the US Global Media Agency. Radio Liberty works in 27 languages ​​in 23 countries – mainly for audiences in countries where media freedom is limited.
• Sites and accounts in several social networks of Russian-language RCE/RS projects, including the sites of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty, were blocked by Roskomnadzor in the spring of 2022 for refusing to remove information about the Russian military invasion of Ukraine. Despite the blocking, the audience’s interest in the information provided by the editorial offices of Radio Liberty and the TV channel “Nastoyashe Vremya” remains significant — it is counted in tens of millions of visited websites and hundreds of millions of video views hosted on YouTube and other platforms.

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