Latvia bans Russian TV channel for national security reasons

National Electronic Media Council Latvia (NEPLP) today canceled the broadcasting license of the Russian TV channel in exile, TV Rain, citing national security concerns. Baltic country.

The NEPLP also blocked the ability to access the channel through the YouTube video platform.

The measure was taken a few days after that body Latvian fined Dozhd TV channel 10,000 euros for showing the annexed Crimean peninsula as part of Russia and for calling the Russian military “our army” on air.

The agency also noted that a Dozhd TV journalist, later fired from the station, appealed to viewers to send aid to the Russians, claiming they were ill-prepared to fight in Ukraine.

In a statement posted on Twitter, NEPLP Chairman Ivars Āboliņš said the broadcasting license would expire on Thursday, December 8, noting that “TV Rain’s management does not understand the importance and severity of each violation” or “set of them” that it commits.

These measures will prevent the broadcasting of the Dozhd TV channel from Baltic countryafter Russian authorities banned it in March and moved its activities to Latvia July also opens offices in Amsterdam, Paris and Georgia.

Station in Russian language You can appeal against the decision of the NEPLP, which was made on the basis of a message received by the organization from the Latvian special services, which indicated that the distribution of content supporting the “aggressor state Russia“poses a threat to national security.

“We will continue to work and consider all the accusations against us to be unfair and absurd,” the channel said on its Twitter account, noting that it will stop broadcasting satellites, but will keep its YouTube account.

UNEXPECTED SOLUTION

For its part, the CEO of the network, Natalya Sindeeva, said in statements she cites local media that he did not expect the decision of the Latvian authorities. “I was sure they wouldn’t,” she said.

It’s unclear if TV Rain’s editors and staff will be able to stay on Latviawhere they used the funds provided Chain of stores TV3 since they started operating in Riga in July.

Despite the statement by the editor-in-chief of the Dozhd TV channel, Tikhon Dzyadko, that the network does not support assistance to the Russian military, and the dismissal of the correspondent in charge, calls for removal from the Dozhd TV channel did not stop on social networks.

From Russian invasion from Ukraine, Latvia banned almost all broadcast content from Russia and worked to block access to the Internet sites of Russian broadcasters and other media, as well as to Russian government sites.

EFE