BBC, CNN and other global news outlets suspend
reporting in Russia
BBC’s director-general says new Russian legislation
‘appears to criminalise the process of independent journalism’
Harriet
Sherwood, Dan Milmo and agencies
Sat 5 Mar
2022 04.02 GMT
Global news
media said they were temporarily suspending reporting in Russia to protect
their journalists after a new law cracking down on foreign news outlets was
passed that threatened jail terms of up to 15 years for spreading “fake news”.
Britain’s
BBC said Friday it had temporarily halted reporting in Russia, and by the end
of the day, the Canadian Broadcasting Company and Bloomberg News said their
journalists were also stopping work. CNN and CBS News said they would stop
broadcasting in Russia, and other outlets removed Russian-based journalists’
bylines as they assessed the situation.
Tim Davie,
the BBC’s director-general, said the legislation “appears to criminalise the
process of independent journalism” in Russia, while a CNN spokesperson said “we
continue to evaluate the situation and our next steps moving forward”.
US
television newscaster ABC News said it would pause broadcasting from Russia as
it assessed the situation. The Washington Post, Dow Jones and Reuters said they
were evaluating the new media law and the situation.
The new
law, passed on Friday, makes intentionally spreading “fake” or “false” news
about the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine a criminal offence. President Valdimir Putin
approved the new law on Friday evening, according to the Tass state news
agency.
It came
after the Kremlin accused the BBC of playing a “determined role in undermining
the Russian stability and security”.
Davie said:
“This legislation appears to criminalise the process of independent journalism.
It leaves us no other option than to temporarily suspend the work of all BBC
News journalists and their support staff within the Russian Federation while we
assess the full implications of this unwelcome development.
“Our BBC
News service in Russian will continue to operate from outside Russia.
“The safety
of our staff is paramount and we are not prepared to expose them to the risk of
criminal prosecution simply for doing their jobs. I’d like to pay tribute to
all of them, for their bravery, determination and professionalism.
“We remain
committed to making accurate, independent information available to audiences
around the world, including the millions of Russians who use our news services.
Our journalists in Ukraine and around the world will continue to report on the
invasion of Ukraine.”
Jonathan
Munro, interim director of BBC News, tweeted: “We are not pulling out @BBCNews
journalists from Moscow … We cannot use their reporting for the time being but
they remain valued members of our teams and we hope to get them back on our
output as soon as possible.”
Bloomberg’s
editor-in-chief John Micklethwait said: “The change to the criminal code, which
seems designed to turn any independent reporter into a criminal purely by
association, makes it impossible to continue any semblance of normal journalism
inside the country.”
The Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation also said that it had temporarily suspended its
reporting inside Russia due to the new law.
“The CBC is
very concerned about new legislation passed in Russia, which appears to
criminalise independent reporting on the current situation in Ukraine and
Russia,” it said in a statement posted online.
As well as
making the publication of “fake news” punishable by up to 15 years in jail, the
new law would also make it an offence to call for sanctions against Russia.
“Our top
priorities are the safety of our employees and covering this important story fairly
and fully,” said Dow Jones spokesperson Steve Severinghaus. “Being in Moscow,
freely able to talk to officials and capture the mood, is key to that mission.”
Russian
officials have repeatedly said that false information has been spread by the US
and its western European allies in an attempt to sow discord among the Russian
people.
The new
legislation was drafted by Russia’s upper house of parliament and signed into
law by Putin, TASS reported.
“This law
will force punishment – and very tough punishment – on those who lied and made
statements which discredited our armed forces,” the chair of the Duma,
Vyacheslav Volodin, said.
The Kremlin
did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the media
companies’ moves to suspend reporting.
Putin
insists that Russia’s “special military operation” is essential to ensure its
security after the expansion of the Nato military alliance to Russia’s borders
and US support for pro-western leaders in Kyiv.
Russian
officials do not use the word “invasion” and say western media have failed to
report on what they cast as the “genocide” of Russian-speaking people in
Ukraine.
The Russian
authorities have also cut access to several foreign news organisations’
websites, including the BBC and Deutsche Welle, for spreading what they alleged
was false information about its war in Ukraine.
“Access has
been restricted to a host of information resources owned by foreigners,” the
state communications watchdog, known as Roskomnadzor, said in a statement.
On Friday
night the regulator said it had also blocked Facebook in response to what it
said were restrictions of access to Russian media on its platform. Roskomnadzor
said there had been 26 cases of discrimination against Russian media by
Facebook since October 2020, with access restricted to state-backed channels
like RT and the RIA news agency.
Liz Truss,
the UK foreign secretary, warned earlier this week that the BBC risked being
banned in Russia if the Kremlin-backed RT news channel, previously known as
Russia Today, was shut down in the UK.
Meanwhile,
the owner of Facebook and Instagram said on Friday that it was blocking the
Russian state-backed news services Russia Today and Sputnik in the UK. The
announcement came before the Russian move to block Facebook. On Thursday the UK
culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, published a letter urging TikTok, Twitter
and Facebook’s parent, Meta, to block RT and Sputnik. Meta has already blocked
the news organisations across the EU.
“Earlier
this week, we announced that we’d be restricting access to RT and Sputnik
across the EU. Consistent with that action, and following a request from the UK
government, we will also be restricting access to RT and Sputnik in the UK at
this time,” said a Meta spokesperson.
Reuters contributed to this report
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