A special parliamentary commission of the State Duma to investigate interference in the internal affairs of Russia directly accused the German state television and radio company Deutsche Welle (DW) of meddling in the internal affairs of Russia and violating the laws of the Russian Federation.
In the summer, during the most scandalous of the so-called non-systemic opposition’s disagreement with the authorities over the unregistered candidates for the city parliament, the website and Twitter DW in Russian issued an appeal to readers to go out for an unauthorized rally in Moscow.
It is worth noting that a bureau of this German agency operates in Moscow. DW headquarters is located in Bonn, there are also broadcasting servers in several languages. It is clear that to take part in the role of an agitator for an illegal action in Moscow decided from there, from Bonn.
Since the last cold war, all these waves and voices - German, free and others - have been and remain instruments of remote propaganda influence and are still supervised by special services. Most likely, this stupid call to go and disobey the authorities was also made by the senior ensign Deutsche Welle or his ward - the editor of the Russian-language site and Twitter DW.
As a result, the parliamentary commission, having made its conclusions, sent recommendations to the Russian Foreign Ministry to study the issue of withdrawing accreditation from the largest news agency in Germany. “If a request is received, we will consider it in the manner prescribed by law,” the Foreign Ministry was told by the parliamentarians.
In general, the practice of media pressure on the domestic agenda of the broadcasting country is an old focus of British, and behind them, propagandists in general. So it was during the world wars, so it was during the cold war of the second half of the last century, it is today. Moreover, this is almost one of the main functions of the largest state information holdings in Western countries.
Of course, there is a very thin line between the personal position of a journalist on a particular occasion and the exact ideological line on interference in the internal affairs of a foreign state.
Of course, the mutual broadcasting of mass media from different countries makes it possible to better understand each other, ensures the human right to receive information from different sources. So, for example, RT works in many countries of the world.
But to cross the line between journalism and direct interference in the internal agenda is unacceptable.
Why is the Russian broadcasting corporation carefully following this principle, and, say, German or British colleagues ignore this rule?
A special parliamentary commission to investigate interference in Russia's internal affairs is conducting several cases of investigation to date. This applies to several large foreign broadcasters in Russian on the territory of Russia and in the Russian segment of the Internet. According to parliamentarians, the result of their work will be not only targeted claims and sanctions against specific foreign media outlets that flagrantly violate Russian laws. Also, the State Duma may consider amending the legislation to toughen the requirements for foreign broadcasting on Russian air and on the Russian Internet.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that if in Russia an authoritative parliamentary commission deals with such investigations and only recommends the necessary measures to protect the information space to the appropriate structures, then in the countries of the old democracy no one bothers with any kind of parliamentary investigations. And an alternative point of view is simply turned off and prohibited. So it was with RT, and with the Sputnik agency.
Here is a fresh example.
On the eve, shortly before the opening of the annual conference of the Conservative Party of Great Britain, the Russian news agency Sputnik was denied accreditation without giving reasons. Just no - that's all. Although the application was filed by the Russian agency a month before the event and none of the agency’s journalists violated the rules of journalistic conduct and laws of Great Britain.
Such is democracy and freedom of speech.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.