Dec 16 (Reuters) – Russia has labelled Deutsche Welle an “undesirable organisation”, in what the German international broadcaster called an effort to suppress independent reporting.
Russia regularly designates entities it says undermine its constitutional order or national security as “undesirable”. The law specifies prison terms of up to five years for funding such activity, or six years for organising it.
DW Director General Barbara Massing said in a video statement that the broadcaster would not be deterred.
“This latest attempt to silence free media highlights the Russian regime’s blatant disregard for press freedom and exposes its fear of independent information,” she said.
Massing said DW’s Russian-language service, despite censorship and blocking, was reaching a larger audience than ever before.
“We will continue to report independently on the war of aggression against Ukraine and other topics about which little information is available in Russia, so that people can form their own opinions,” she said.
Vasily Piskarev, head of the Russian parliament’s commission for the investigation of foreign interference in Russia’s internal affairs, said DW was “at the forefront of hostile anti-Russian propaganda”.
He said the “undesirable” label meant that any form of cooperation with it would from now on be prosecuted.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Mark Trevelyan in London; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
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