In Latvia, they called the shutdown of Russian TV channels “arbitrary”. This is stated in the statement of the largest opposition party in the republic “Consent”, published by the deputy of the Seimas Valery Ageshin, RIA Novosti reports.
According to the statement, the pandemic is forcing residents of Latvia to spend more and more time at home, but the National Council for Electronic Media at one point takes away from them many of their favorite TV channels, which are watched by hundreds of thousands of viewers. It notes that such a decision increases the level of psychological discomfort and depression in society and provokes emotional stress in people.
Party representatives said that the council leadership did not explain their actions in any way. They also emphasize that even if the shutdown of Russian TV channels is caused by some copyright problems or other violations, the administrative measures applied seem arbitrary.
Earlier, the co-chairman of the Russian Union of Latvia (RSL), a former deputy of the Diet, Miroslav Mitrofanov, called the blocking of 16 Russian TV channels in Latvia “linguistic swindle”. In his opinion, this was another blow to Russian-language television under another far-fetched pretext.
On February 9 it became known that retransmission of 16 more Russian TV channels will be blocked in Latvia. We are talking about REN TV Baltic, NTV MIR Baltic, Karusel International, NTV Serial and others. Prior to that, the Latvian cable TV operator Tet stopped broadcasting the Russian First Channel, NTV Mir, REN TV Baltiya, Kinokomedia and Kinomix from February 1.