Violations of Russian Mass Media Rights Abroad
Mass media monitoring results
2017
On 23 February, Ukraine banned broadcasting of the Russian The Hunter and The Fisherman HD TV channel. The National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council claimed that the reason for the ban was "A Star on the Hook" program that showed a GRU colonel ranked Hero of Russia, Evgeny Konopelkin, who had fought in Chechnya. The National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting claimed that the broadcast of such programs contradicted the law On Television and Radio Broadcasting, which prohibited "propaganda of the
On 21 February, the official Fecebook account of the Zvezda TV channel was blocked on the grounds of the publication devoted to the death of the Somali battalion commander Mikhail Tolstykh.
On 7 February, blogger Alexander Lapshin, extradited from Minsk at the request of Baku, was taken to the Heydar Aliyev Airport by staff of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
On 31 January, cameraman of Life (a Russian TV channel) Pavel Chuprin was injured in Donetsk. A group of Russian journalists, working together with local media representatives came under fire of Ukrainian security forces in the Kievsky district of Donetsk.
On 29 January, Russian NTV channel’s journalists came under fire in Makeyevka. No one was injured.
On 19 January, the Dataminr Company, that owns a Twitter stream analyzing service used by world news agencies, deactivated the RT account and restricted access to its services. The company has not yet provided an official explanation of the ban reasons, however, during a telephone call RT staff were informed that «the company is reviewing its policy of working with state news agencies».
On 19 January, Facebook temporarily restricted the RT channel’s opportunity to publish messages with links, pictures and videos on its
On 12 January, the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine ordered to discontinue the broadcasting of Dozhd, a Russian TV channel. The decision was made on the grounds of "
On 11 January, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry published a "black list" of undesirable persons in Azerbaijan. 180 foreign journalists are on the list «for illegal visits to the occupied territories (
2016
On 15 December, journalists of Zvezda, a Russian TV channel, were not allowed to enter Moldavia. The camera crew was detained at the airport in Kishinev and sent back to Russia. Members of the group were banned to enter the country within 10 years.
On 12 December, the camera crews of four Russian TV channels (Russia, NTV, Channel One, Channel Five) came under fire in the village of Sakhanka, Novoazovsky District, that from the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
On 26 November, a camera crew of Dozhd, a Russian TV channel, was expelled from the Donbass on the grounds of an incorrect mobile phone number specified during accreditation. Law enforcement officers of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) interrogated journalists, looked through and deleted their records, and damaged technical equipment of one of the journalists. Journalists were also banned from entering the DNR. No physical violence against the media workers was applied.
On 23 November, the European Parliament adopted a resolution concerning countermeasures against the hostile to the European Union propaganda from Russia. The draft resolution of the European Parliament on EU strategic communication to counteract propaganda against it by third parties states that Russia provides financial support to opposition political parties and organizations in EU member states. Sputnik, the RT TV channel, the Russian World Foundation (фонд "Русский мир" — in Russian) and the Federal Agency for the CIS Issues (Rossotrudnichestvo) are called in the resolution as the main information threats to the European Union and its partners in Eastern Europe.
On 17 November, the Lithuanian Broadcasting Commission decided to stop broadcasting the RTR Planeta TV Channel (Russia) for three months for "incitement to war, discord and national hatred". The reason for the suspension of the broadcast of the Russian television channel was the program "Duel" broadcast on 6 October, in which State Duma Deputy Vladimir Zhirinovsky equated US military actions to terrorist actions. The decision came into force on 21 November.
On 11 November, in China, anchor of "The Discovery of China" Yevgeny Kolesov and cameraman Sergei Gusev from Channel One were detained in China without any explanation. After spending several hours in the police department the journalists were forced to format their memory cards to destroy the entire material shot within a few previous days.
On 8 November, the Moldovan authorities closed entry for Igor Korotchenko, a Russian journalist, the
On 3 November, reporter Murad Gazdiev and a cameramen of the RT TV Channel came under fire shot by militants in Aleppo (Syria). The journalists were not injured.
On 21 October, journalist of the Rossiya Segodnya International News Agency Ella Taranova, who came to Jurmala (Latvia) to cover the Baltic Forum, was detained in a hotel and expelled from Latvia. Later the Republic of Latvia frontier service representatives explained that Ella Taranova had been on the "black list" of the security police since August 2014.
On 17 October, National Westminster Bank blocked RT TV accounts in the UK without any explanation. It is reported that the largest shareholder of the bank is the British Government, which has repeatedly demonstrated concern about the growing popularity of the Russian TV channel in the country.
On 6 October, six mortar shells exploded on the territory of a hotel in Aleppo where Channel One crew lived. No one was injured as a result of the targeting fire onto the hotel.
On 6 October, the Press Service of the Estonian Ministry of Defense refused to accredit the
On 4 October, the bus that had been transporting the crews of six Russian TV channels came under fire in Aleppo. None of the journalists was injured.
On 4 October, People’s Deputy of Ukraine Alexei Goncharenko proposed to ban the entry of all the Russian media representatives into the country except only some journalists.
On 3 October, camera crews of NTV and Zvezda TV channels came under fire in Aleppo (Syria). No one was injured in the incident.
On 6 September, RT journalists came under mortar shelling in Libya. During the filming, journalists were nearly attacked by a suicide bomber.
On 1 September, it became known that the Security Service of Ukraine carried out a search in the Representative Office of the Russian
On 17 August, the Estonian police detained Russian citizen Alexander Kornilov, the editor of news websites Baltia and Baltnews. The Estonian authorities consider these publications as sources of Kremlin propaganda.
On 29 July, the camera crew of Channel Five was detained on the
On 20 July, Russian journalist Pavel Sheremet was killed as a result of a car explosion in Kiev.
On 18 July, correspondent of REN TV Valentin Trushnin was detained at the airport in Istanbul to be deported later. He arrived to report about an attempted military coup in the country. Later it turned out that the reporter was on the list of persons for whom the entry into Turkey was prohibited.
On 7 July, the Moldovan Parliament approved draft laws in the first reading that prohibited programs broadcasting Russian TV channels in the republic.
On 29 June, Turkish authorities banned RIA Novosti correspondent Dmitry Vinogradov to enter the country. He arrived to cover the consequences of the terrorist attack in Ataturk Airport (Istanbul). The frontier guards said that his name was blacklisted, but they did not specify the reasons of it.
On 3 June, a court in Warsaw suspended consideration of the complaint of a Rossiya Segodnya observer, Leonid Sviridov, against the illegal cancellation of his right to reside in Poland. The process was suspended due to the fact that the higher court had not yet completed its consideration.
On 27 May, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko put into force the decree of the National Security and Defense Council concerning sanctions against the leaders of a number of Russian media.
On 17 May, an NTV camera crew came under a sniper attack near the Yasinovatsky checkpoint at the
On 15 May, a camera crew of The Russia TV channel (Россия — in Russian) came under fire opened by the Armed Forces of Ukraine nearby Yasinovatsky checkpoint at the
On 5 May, journalist of Rossiya Segidnya Leonid Sviridov was banned from entering Poland and other Schengen countries until 2020. The Polish Foreign Ministry recalled his journalistic accreditation at the end of 2014. After that, a procedure to deprive Sviridov of the status of a resident of the European Union was launched. Sviridov was forced to leave the country because of local special services’ suspicions of his espionage in favor of Russia.
On 24 April, VGTRK journalist Darya Grigorova, who arrived in Kiev, was detained at a passport control and without any reason was given banned the entry to Ukraine for a period of five years.
On 14 April, the website of
On 14 April,
On 5 April, journalists of, а Russian TV channel LifeNews, who arrived in Azerbaijan to cover military actions in
On 29 March, members of the OSCE Mission and a camera crew of the LifeNews channel came under fire in the village of Zaitsevo. No one was injured.
On 26 March, acamera crew of LifeNews came under fire when making a reportage at the Yasinovatsky checkpoint. None of the journalists were injured.
On 16 March, RT journalist Graham Phillips was detained by the police during the events timed to Day of Commemoration of the Latvian SS Legion Volunteers in Riga. Phillips was deported to Russia on 17 March for the question "why do you glorify fascism?" and the calls to "come to their senses". The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Latvia blacklisted the journalist and banned him from entering the country for three years.
On 15 March, RT TV journalists who filmed a documentary about the fight against the terrorist organization ISIS (banned in Russia) came under fire in Shaddady (Syria). The crew was fired with a number of shells, none of the journalists were injured.
On 14 March, journalists from VGTRK, Channel One, Zvezda TV Channel (Russia) and Xinhu (a Chinese news agency) were attacked 30 kilometers away from Donetsk. During some time it was impossible to evacuate journalists from the firing zone because of the open fire from mortars and grenade launchers, but none of the journalists were injured.
On 9 March, four VGTRK staffers were blacklisted as persons threatening national security after they had been banned from attending the Free Russia Forum in Lithuania. The journalists were ordered to leave the country within three days. On 10 March journalists were deported from Lithuania. They were banned from entering the country for one year.
On 8 March, a group of Russian journalists, including the reporters of Channel One, Channel Five, RT and RIA Novosti, came under fire near the town of Yasinovataya, north of Donetsk. Journalists managed to leave the place of shelling. None of them were injured.
On 1 March, journalists from different countries, including the camera crew of Channel One (special correspondent Alexander Evstigneev and cameraman Dmitry Kachurin) came under fire in Syria. As a result of the shelling four foreign journalists were injured.
On 21 January, correspondent of VGTRK Alexander Balitsky was not allowed to enter Moldova because of a
On 21 January, Moldovan authorities deported LifeNews correspondent Kirill Olkov’s camera crew in connection with the protest actions that took place in Kishinev. The airport staff did not allow media representatives to leave the airport building without any explanation.
On 21 January, the Moldovan frontier and customs service staff at the Kishinev Airport did not let the camera crew of the REN TV channel to enter Moldova to cover the protests. REN TV cameraman Alexander Malyshev was deported to Russia by decision of the Moldovan authorities.
2015
On March 18, two Russian TV hosts: author of the film The Crimea. The way home Andrey Kondrashov and
On March 23, journalist, historian and announcer at the Sputnik radio Armen Gasparyan was deported from Moldova, where he was declared persona non grata.
On April 20, three journalists of the TV Center channel (Russia) were refused to enter Moldova; the refusal was based on the wording "an unclear purpose of the visit". According to correspondent of the TV channel Artyom Shirokov, the camera crew faced difficulties while going through a passport checkpoint in Kishinev.
On May 17, a camera crew of the RT Arabic was attacked by police whereas they were shooting a video about Israelite settlers who were marching across Jerusalem with broadsheets "Jerusalem is for the Israeli". The police damaged a camera and banned shooting, even though the crew had the accreditation.
On July 13, Rossiya Segodnya reported that the account of its representative office in Britain at Barclays back was closed. As reported by the news agency, the official notification of the closure was not received, although Barclays’ spokesman confirmed it during the telephone conversation. The reason for closing was not announced.
On September 7, director of the RT Ruptly video agency Alexey Amelushkin was deported from Moldova and had his camera confiscated.
On September 7, journalists Alexey Kazannikov and Nataly Kalisheva were detained by Ukrainian frontier guards and had their flash drive with reportage confiscated.
On September 16, correspondent of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper Galina Sapozhnikova was deported from Lithuania.
On October 3, a camera crew of the NTV channel was detained by Moldavian frontier guards and deported from Moldova.
On October 7, two journalists of Russia 24 were rejected to enter Moldova, where they were going to work during the European championship.
On October 15, Russian correspondent Nikolay Vasiliev and his camera crew were detained by Estonian border guards after having shot the antimigration rally on the Toompea limestone hill and returning back to Russia. They had their documents, mobile phones and working equipment confiscated.
On November 23, a group of Russian journalists came under fire in Syria. Tree of them were injured, one was contused.
On November 19, a camera crew of the NTV channel’s "Central Television" program was assaulted in Brussels’ northern outskirts, where they were looking for the relatives or friends of the terrorist who had committed a suicide bombing at the Stade de France stadium in Paris.
On November 23, the car with RT journalists Roman Kosarev and Sargon Hadaya and TASS correspondent Alexey Elistratov inside was attacked by missiles in Syria.
On December 8, a camera crew of the Russia 1 TV channel headed by journalist Aleksander Buzaladze was deported from Turkey.
On December 13, journalist of the Rossiya Segodnya news agency Leonid Sviridov left Poland, being deprived of his residence permit without any court’s ruling.
On December 14, historian and anchor of the Kultura TV channel Felix Razumovsky was declared persona non grata in Lithuania. He and all other members of his camera crew were not allowed to enter the country