{"id":26483,"date":"2022-03-03T02:37:08","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T07:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=26483"},"modified":"2022-03-03T03:09:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T08:09:05","slug":"russian-regulator-censors-ukraine-war-coverage-reporters-told-to-toe-kremlin-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=26483","title":{"rendered":"Russian regulator censors Ukraine war coverage, reporters told to toe Kremlin line"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION<\/p>\n

An article from Reporters Without Borders<\/a><\/p>\n

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) supports the efforts of Russia\u2019s independent journalists and media outlets to provide reliable news coverage despite the clampdown imposed by the Kremlin as a result of its war in Ukraine, which has increased the many obstacles they have already had to deal with.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nJournalists work in the news room of the independent Dozhd (Rain) television channel in Moscow, Russia.\u00a0\u00a9 2021 AP\/Denis Kaminev, reprinted from Human Rights Watch<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

\u0427\u0438\u0442\u0430\u0442\u044c \u043d\u0430 \u0440\u0443\u0441\u0441\u043a\u043e\u043c \/\u00a0Read in Russian<\/a><\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s media regulator, Roskomnadzor, has become a \u201cMinistry of Truth,\u201d as the independent Journalists and Media Workers Union courageously\u00a0pointed out<\/a>. The words \u201cwar,\u201d \u201cattack\u201d and \u201cinvasion\u201d are now\u00a0banned\u00a0<\/a> from the media. Only information from \u201cofficial Russian sources\u201d \u2013 the defence ministry \u2013 is now permitted. Information about military losses or troop moral had already been\u00a0classified\u00a0<\/a> since October. Any attempt to provide such coverage is liable to result in prosecution or inclusion on the \u201cforeign agents\u201d list.
\n\u00a0
\nYesterday, Roskomnadzor\u00a0blocked\u00a0<\/a> access to at least six online media outlets because of their war coverage \u2013\u00a0Nastoyashchee Vremya, an online TV channel run by the Prague-based US broadcaster\u00a0Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty (RFE\/RL),\u00a0Krym Realii, an\u00a0RFE\/RL\u00a0subsidiary in Crimea, the opposition media outlet\u00a0The New Times, the student newspaper \u00a0Doxa<\/a> , the Russian version of the\u00a0Interfax-Ukraine\u00a0news agency and the Ukrainian pro-government news site\u00a0Gordon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe information war is in full swing in Russia,\u201d said Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF\u2019s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. \u201cPresident Vladimir Putin needs to put all the media on a battle footing in order to justify the invasion of Ukraine to Russian citizens by concealing the war\u2019s victims. But the\u00a0Pravda\u00a0era is over. We support independent media outlets that are providing reliable news coverage in this very fraught context.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nProsecutions<\/strong>
\n\u00a0
\nRoskomnadzor has also initiated\u00a0proceedings\u00a0<\/a> against at least ten media outlets, including\u00a0Radio Echo of Moscow, the popular news site\u00a0Mediazona,\u00a0Dozhd TV\u00a0and the investigative newspaper\u00a0Novaya Gazeta, for \u201cdisseminating false information.\u201d\u00a0Novaya Gazeta\u2019s high profile editor, Nobel peace laureate\u00a0Dmitry Muratov, posted a\u00a0 video\u00a0<\/a> calling for a major anti-war movement and published the newspaper\u2019s 26 February issue in both Russian and Ukrainian in a show of solidarity. It was probably for posting his video \u2013 containing the word \u201cwar\u201d \u2013\u00a0on its website that the trade magazine\u00a0Journalist\u00a0is also being prosecuted, although it later removed the video.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Continued in right column)<\/p>\n

(click here for the article in French<\/a> or click here for the article in Spanish<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Questions related to this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n 
\nFree flow of information, How is it important for a culture of peace?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

How can we be sure to get news about peace demonstrations?<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Continued from left column)<\/p>\n

Roskomnadzor accused these media outlets of publishing \u201cfalse information about the shelling of Ukrainian cities and the death of civilians in Ukraine as a result of the actions of the Russian Army, as well as content in which the ongoing operation is called an attack, invasion or a declaration of war.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nAfter receiving warnings from Roskomnadzor, other media outlets deleted content that was not to the Kremlin\u2019s liking because they feared that their websites could be blocked or they could be fined up to 5 million roubles (more than 50,000 euros). This was the case with\u00a0Prospekt Mira, an online media outlet based in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, which had to take down an article referring to explosions in Ukrainian cities.
\n\u00a0
\nSocial media have also been targeted. Internet access providers have\u00a0restricted\u00a0<\/a> access to Twitter, while Roskomnadzor has begun restricting access to Facebook, as\u00a0announced\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0on 25 February, after Facebook decided to reduce search engine result links to certain state-owned and pro-government media outlets. Pavel Durov, the founder of the encrypted messaging service Telegram,\u00a0said he was planning\u00a0\u00a0<\/a> to restrict access to his platform in Ukraine and Russia because of the uncontrolled spread of fake news on many Telegram channels, but he later retracted.
\n\u00a0
\nArrests of journalists<\/strong>
\n\u00a0
\nJournalists have been arrested over war-related reporting.\u00a0Polina Ulanovskaya\u00a0of the\u00a0SotaVision\u00a0website, and at least three other reporters from local news sites \u2013\u00a093.ru\u2019s\u00a0Valeria Dulskaya\u00a0and\u00a0Yuga.ru\u2019s\u00a0Valeria Kirsanova\u00a0and\u00a0Nikita Zyrianov\u00a0\u2013 were summarily arrested while covering an anti-war demonstration in the southwestern city Krasnodar on 27 February. They were\u00a0released\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0in the evening.
\n\u00a0
\nThree reporters with\u00a0RFE\/RL\u2019s Russian service\u00a0Radio Svoboda\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Ivan Voronin,\u00a0Artyom Radygin\u00a0and\u00a0Nikita Tatarskiy\u00a0\u2013 were arrested while covering an anti-war protest in Moscow on 24 February, and spent\u00a0six hours in a police station\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0before being released without charge when their lawyers intervened.
\n\u00a0
\nNovaya Gazeta\u00a0journalists\u00a0Ilya Azar\u00a0and\u00a0Ivan Zhilin, and two\u00a0Radio Svoboda\u00a0journalists, reporter\u00a0Sergei Khazov-Kassia\u00a0and cameraman\u00a0Andrei Kiselev,\u00a0spent more than two hours in a police station\u00a0\u00a0<\/a> on 26 February after being arrested while preparing to cover an anti-war protest in Belgorod, a city near the Ukrainian border.
\n\u00a0
\nWhen the two\u00a0Novaya Gazeta\u00a0journalists entered a hospital with a view to interviewing injured people who had been taken there, a guard asked them to leave, they reported in a\u00a0story\u00a0\u00a0<\/a> published the same day. \u201cYesterday, a journalist from\u00a0Belsat\u00a0[a Belarusian exile TV channel based in Poland] was manhandled in this hospital and was forced to delete all of her photos,\u201d they reported, added that \u201cshe says she saw more than we did.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nHarassment<\/strong><\/p>\n

As leading victims of the government clampdown, journalists have also protested, despite the risks. Some have been arrested while standing on their own with a sign criticising censorship \u2013 the only permitted form of protest. Pressure has been placed on others. For example,\u00a0Elena Chernenko, the head of the business daily\u00a0Kommersant\u2019s foreign desk, was excluded from the pool of Kremlin-accredited reporters for publishing an open letter opposing the war that was signed by more than 300 journalists.
\n\u00a0
\nThe state media are meanwhile moving into battle. The\u00a0Rossiya 1\u00a0TV channel decided on 27 February to grant much more airtime to shows carrying government propaganda, such as the talk-show presented by Vladimir Soloviev, a star TV host who is the target of\u00a0international sanctions\u00a0<\/a>. \u201cIn Russia, Russian officials and journalists should be purged if they don\u2019t support Putin,\u201d he said during his\u00a0show\u00a0<\/a> on 24 February.
\n\u00a0
\nRussia is ranked 150th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021\u00a0World Press Freedom Index<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION An article from Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RSF) supports the efforts of Russia\u2019s independent journalists and media outlets to provide reliable news coverage despite the clampdown imposed by the Kremlin as a result of its war in Ukraine, which has increased the many obstacles they have already had to … Continue reading Russian regulator censors Ukraine war coverage, reporters told to toe Kremlin line<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-26483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information","tag-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}