A new Russian law provides prison sentences, up to 15 years of detention, for the spread of information aimed at “discrediting” the Russian military forces.
Le Monde with AFP
The ads of “suspension” of the media activity succeed one another. Saturday, March 5th, it was the turn of first Hispanophone press agency in the world, EFE, to react to the vote of a new Russian law that provides for the prison for the authors of “false information” on the war. Ukraine. A first “Since 1970, when EFE has opened its permanent office in Moscow,” the agency indicates the press release.
The new Russian law, signed Friday by President Vladimir Putin, provides for prison sentences, up to 15 years of detention, for the spread of information aimed at “discrediting” military forces and punished also all call to sanction Moscow.
“The EFE agency deeply regrets this serious attack on freedom of expression, an obvious attempt from the Kremlin to hide the truth to public opinion,” commented on the president of the Press Organ Gabriela Cañas.
The BBC, RAI and Bloomberg also concerned
Saturday night, it is the Spanish public television channel Rtve who in turn announced that she stopped “temporarily informing from Russia” because of that law. The chain explained to “continue to give the greatest possible information on the situation in Russia and Ukraine”, while it “analyzed” this unprecedented situation for its journalists present on site after the approval of this law.
Spanish television thus follows up to many media that removed their correspondents from Russia by fears of reprisal: British public broadcasts BBC, Canadian CBC / Radio Canada, or German Ard and ZDF, the Bloomberg News agency, American CNN and CBS television channels, Rai Italian TV channel.
The Information Director of Radio France, Vincent Giret, said that the group , which has seven national channels including France Inter and FranceInfo,” [preserves its] correspondents “, without suspending them. The group expects “waiting for legal expertise and [it will decide] in the coming days,” he continues. As a first step, a group communication officer had indicated to the France Press Agency that Radio France suspended the correspondence of its journalists, pending the results of this legal expertise, which [Nute] had relayed.
Saturday, the Kremlin defended the necessary “firmness” of his law repressing “the misleading information” on the Russian army to cope with a “war of information” carried out according to him against Russia in connection with the conflict in Ukraine. “In the context of the information war, it was necessary to adopt a law whose firmness was adapted, which was done,” said the spokesman for the Russian Presidency Dmitri Peskov, the day after his entry into force .