Russia expecting OSCE representative for media freedom to respond to Europarl anti-propaganda resolution - Russian envoy to OSCE
MOSCOW. Nov 25 (Interfax) - Moscow demands that OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic respond to the November 23 resolution of the European Parliament, which discriminates against Russian media outlets, Russian Permanent Representative to the OSCE Alexander Lukashevich said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry's website published the text of Lukashevich's speech at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council on Thursday.
"We demand that OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic appropriately respond to the European Parliament resolution, which is a blatant example of a direct appeal for limiting that freedom," he said.
The resolution is "an outrageous example of discrimination against Russian media outlets, which is at odds not only with key international standards in the field of freedom of expression, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the OSCE International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but also human rights and free media norms of the European Union itself," Lukashevich said.
"For instance, this is the matter of Article 11 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the EU decision dated December 11, 2012, on the elaboration of a digital freedom strategy in EU foreign policy," the senior diplomat said.
"The authors of such initiatives seem to be so scared of Russian journalists that they are ready to breach the democratic principles the protection of which they care about so much," Lukashevich said.
On November 23, the European parliament approved a resolution to counteract propaganda by third parties, including Russia. The resolution specifically mentioned the RT channel, the Sputnik news agency, the Russkiy Mir Foundation and Rossotrudnichestvo. The Russian administration strongly criticized the document. For instance, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the resolution as 'degradation of the ideas of democracy'.
