European Federation of Journalists Condemns Publication of Lists of Sputnik, BBC Reporters
Ricardo Gutierrez, the head of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), condemned on Friday the recent publication of lists of journalists working at Sputnik's UK office in Edinburgh and the BBC Moscow bureau and their personal details.
On Sunday, following the example of Ukraine's Mirotvorets website, which is known for publishing private information of people who allegedly pose a threat to Ukraine's sovereignty, The Times published a list of eight journalists working at Sputnik's UK office in Edinburgh, complete with their photos, Names and job titles. The article also featured an appeal of Alex Cole-Hamilton, a member of the Scottish parliament from Scottish Liberal Democrats, to deprive Russian nationals living in Scotland and engaged in "information warfare" with the aim of destabilizing the United Kingdom of their assets in the country.
On Thursday, a number of Russian internet resources published the names and photographs of the employees of the BBC Moscow bureau in response to The Times' move.
"The EFJ condemns the use of these lists - the one published in the UK and the one published in Russia - as a way to harass and to intimidate journalists. A media should not publish the details of journalists from other media organisations when there is no editorial reason or justification to do so.
In our view, these leaked lists of journalists are a very alarming development which could further endanger the safety situation for these journalists," Gutierrez said.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow condemns the publication of personal data of Sputnik journalists in the UK media, adding that it was unprecedented and did not correspond to civilized norms. When asked if the Kremlin approved the publication in response, in a number of Russian media, of UK media employees' data, he said the Kremlin treated this with understanding.
"These two cases in the UK and in Russia remind me the Myrotvorets case in 2016: a Ukrainian organisation called the 'Research centre of elements of crimes against national security (Myrotvorets)' published on its website thousands of personal details of journalists who it claims have accreditation with rebels movements in the east of the country. The details included names, employers, emails addresses and mobiles phone numbers of over 4000 journalists," Gutierrez added.
In response to the Times article, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Sputnik and the RT broadcaster, on Monday congratulated the United Kingdom on the "upcoming 1933," a reference to the year Nazi leader Adolf Hitler became German chancellor and ordered a decree enabling government control over the press.