TV Rain being evicted from Latvian studio

RIGA. Dec 16 (Interfax/BNS) - The Latvian media group TV3 Group, which leased premises to TV Rain (designated a foreign agent media outlet in Russia), will terminate its contract with the Russian television channel which has been stripped of its license, TV3 Group's communication manager Karlis Poznakovs said.

The move comes after the National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEMMC) detected violations and revoked Rain's broadcasting license.

The lease will be terminated and the premises vacated in January, the group said.

TV Rain broadcasting in Latvia stopped on December 8 after the NEMMC revoked its license to broadcast in the republic. NEMMC chairman Ivars Abolins said the decision had been made for reasons of safety and public order and after evaluating a series of recent failings. These included: no soundtrack in the official language for broadcasts, showing Crimea on a map as a part of Russia, referring to the Russian army as "our army," and so on. The NEMMC also assessed information from the national security service but the chairman would not divulge its contents.

The channel used to broadcast in Russia. However, on August 20, 2021 the Justice Ministry placed it on a register of foreign agent media outlets. On March 1, 2022 the telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor blocked Rain's website. On March 3, the channel stopped broadcasting in Russia. In October its founder Natalia Sindeyeva, editor-in-chief Tikhon Dzyadko and journalists Yekaterina Kotrikadze and Vladimir Romensky were placed on the Justice Ministry's list of individual foreign agents.

Commenting on the situation to the press on December 6, Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: "Some think all the time that it's better somewhere else than at home. And some think all the time that it's freedom somewhere else and it's unfreedom at home. This is a vivid example demonstrating how erroneous such illusions are".