This is yet another
attempt at restricting the activity of Russian media in Britain, Maria
Zakharova believes.
MOSCOW, May 23.
/TASS/.Russia is going to make a tough response to the British media regulator
Ofcom’s three newly-launched investigations of the television broadcaster RT,
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the media on
Wednesday.
"The response to
this show and the outcome will be tough," she warned.
"We have taken
note of the British media regulator Ofcom’s statement it had launched three new
investigations of the television channel RT over alleged violations of the
broadcasting code and license terms," she said. "The regulator did
not bother to explain what its criticism of the RT programs’ content was all
about, though."
"This is yet
another attempt at restricting the activity of Russian media in Britain. The
reason is obvious. Russian media publish facts that Britain finds
annoying," Zakharova said.
Russia’s authorities
concerned have already begun to scrutinize the content of British media
publications represented in Russia."
"This is no
choice of ours. We’ve never indulged in such activities," Zakharova said.
"Whenever fake news was published or facts were distorted, we preferred to
say so aloud in public, but never use the measures of the sort being taken
against Russian media, including those by London, which leads the crusade
against Russian media."
"We shall reply
to this in the same style and fashion," Zakharova said.
Far-fetched criticism
The newly-announced
investigations focus on two RT newscasts of April 26 and May 4 and one talk
show, Crosstalk, of April 20. Ofcom said on its website investigations are
launched if the regulator suspects the broadcaster or service provider is in
breach of the regulator’s code, rules, license terms or other requirements.
Ofcom’s press-service
said the regulator would look into whether the discussion of US policies in
Syria in Crosstalk was balanced enough. As for the two newscasts Ofcom plans to
scrutinize, one was devoted to nationalism, Nazism and the attitude to Gypsies
in Ukraine, and the other, to fracking in Britain.
In the middle of
April, Ofcom opened seven investigations against RT on the suspicion of bias in
covering the poisoning of former GRU Colonel Sergei Skripal and his daughter
Yulia in Salisbury on March 4. Since the moment of the Salisbury incident
Britain has launched ten probes into RT’s content - as many as in the previous
eleven years. If the probe launched late last year into the RT’s show hosted by
the former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond is to be counted, the list
of investigations will grow to eleven.
Earlier, the RT told
TASS in London it had seen the Ofcom statement but not received an official
notification yet.
Source: ITAR-TASS
23-05-2018
