1424th meeting of the Committee of Ministers (9 February 2022)
- The Russian authorities recently decided to ban the German public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle from broadcasting in Russia, to revoke the accreditation of its employees, to suggest to consider designating it as a ”foreign agent”, and to close its office in Moscow. This is unacceptable and lacks any justification. The German regulator’s decision to ban the Russian state broadcaster RT DE from operating in the country due to the absence of a valid licence is entirely unrelated to the work of Deutsche Welle in Russia.
- In addition, the state media regulator Roskomnadzor requested Russian news outlets to remove previously published news stories with references to anti-corruption investigations by the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and his network. Moreover, in December 2021 a court in the Moscow region ruled to restrict access to the website of OVD-Info, a Russian independent media and human rights advocacy project.
- Independent journalism is one of the strongest tools to hold governments accountable, monitor democratic processes, counter disinformation and challenge abuse of power, human rights violations, and corruption. It is of concern that the Russian authorities continue to restrict the work of Russian independent media outlets, and of individual journalists and other media workers and to hinder the work of human rights defenders, thus confirming a negative pattern of a systematic crackdown on the human rights and freedoms that are enshrined in the Russian constitution.
- The European Union urges the authorities of the Russian Federation to reconsider the above decisions, to review current legislation, including the “foreign agents” law, in order to bring it in line with their obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and to avail themselves of the relevant opinions of the Venice Commission.
