The Baltic states canceled the broadcasting license of the Dozhd TV channel over suspicions that it was helping Russia in its war against Ukraine.
On December 8, the independent Russian television company Rain was forced to stop broadcasting in the Baltic countries. License revoked from channel Latvia. Now Dozhd has been stripped of the right to distribute his content in the European Union, the United States and other countries. The reason is “a threat to national security and public order.” What is the impetus for such a decision will tell Correspondent.net.
Support for the Russian army?
The scandal that led to the revocation of the license erupted after on December 1, the channel’s host Alexei Korostelev asked viewers to send information about the lack of equipment of the mobilized Russians on the front line in Ukraine on December 1 and expressed hope that the Dozhd would be able to help the soldiers.
“We hope that we can help a lot of servicemen, including, for example, equipment and just basic front amenities,” he said.
A few hours later, the editor-in-chief of the Dozhd TV channel, Tikhon Dzyadko, wrote on his Telegram channel that Korostelev’s phrase “gives the viewer a feeling” that Dozhd is interested in helping the Russian army. He assured that the TV channel “does not and will not take part in helping to equip the Russian army – at the front or beyond.” Dzyadko apologized to the audience and said that the presenter’s phrase about helping the Russian military was removed from the broadcast recording.
On the same day, the channel stopped working with TV presenter Korostelev. Two other journalists, Vladimir Romensky and Margarita Lyutova, also resigned from Dozhd in protest.
But on December 2, the State Security Service of Latvia (SSS) began to investigate Korostelev’s statements about the channel’s assistance to Russian troops in Ukraine, and just a few days later, on December 6, the Latvian National Council decided for Electronic Media to be withdrawn. the broadcasting license from Dozhd.
It should be noted that on December 6, the general director of the TV channel, Natalya Sindeeva, called for the return of the host Korostelev to work. He called in a video message.
“We fired Lesha because of a mistake. It was the worst thing we could have done in that situation. We had to take Lesha out of the air, breathe out. All these four days, I want to correct the mistake and say: “Lesha, I’m sorry,” said Sindeeva.
Not the first penalty
Like many other independent media in Russia, Dozhd was blocked shortly after the outbreak of a full-scale war against Ukraine and forced to stop broadcasting on the territory of the Russian Federation. In June, Dozhd received a license to broadcast in Latvia, after which it legally became a Latvian media company, subject to local law.
The TV channel has repeatedly made it clear that it opposes Russia’s war against Ukraine, but Latvia has repeatedly urged Dozhd to take a clearer position regarding its own reporting on mobilized and the state of affairs in the Russian army.
Rain has already been fined 10,000 euros for calling the Russian army “ours” in one of the programs. A map of the Russian Federation is also shown, including the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. According to Latvian authorities, Rain also received a warning for broadcasting without Latvian subtitles.
Strong emotional background
Despite these “shocks” of the Rain, calls to close the channel were made after the presenter Ekaterina Kotrikadze, in a conversation with the mayor of Riga, Mārtiņš Stakis, raised the issue of the demolition of the monument of the Soviet era in Latvia. However, Stakis himself called this interview “correct”. But observers agree that Riga’s dissatisfaction with Rain began precisely with this interview. At the same time, there were no formal reasons for closing the TV channel at that time.
Latvian political scientist Philip Raevsky believes that in connection with the situation in Ulan and the war in Ukraine, in addition to the national law, it is necessary to pay attention to the historical circumstances of Latvia and the emotional background in the Baltic countries.
According to him, there are fears in Latvia that all Russians, including opposition journalists, are agents of Putin. According to the political scientist, the Latvian public sees a historical parallel in the suffering of the Ukrainian people: “Latvians experienced something similar. In 1940, when the Red Army occupied Latvia, and in 1949, when Latvians were deported en masse to Siberia.”
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Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.