UN Says Backs All Accredited Media After Ukraine Diplomat Calls Russian Media 'Terrorists'

UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th October, 2021) United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Thursday that the world body strongly supports every media organization accredited to work at its headquarters in New York following a recent incident involving a senior Ukrainian diplomat labeling all Russian media as "terrorists."

Earlier in the week, a RIA Novosti reporter approached the head of the Directorate-General for International Security at the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Volodymyr Lakomov, during the UN General Assembly First Committee meeting in order to ask him a question. Lakomov refused to talk to the correspondent, saying he considers all Russian media representatives to be "terrorists" and "propaganda-terrorists."

"We strongly support every media organization that is accredited and present in this building and their right to ask questions," Dujarric said when asked the extent to which the Ukrainian diplomat's behavior complies with the principles of freedom of the press and the United Nations headquarters ethics.

Dujjaric also said that member states and delegates answer questions posed to them in the way that they see fit.

However, the UN spokesman pointed out that the United Nations does not consider RIA Novosti to be a terrorist group.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has repeatedly raised concerns about harassment of journalists in Ukraine. In its� 2020 World Press Freedom Index, RSF lowered Ukraine by one position to listing it as 97th, between Liberia and Mauritania.

Earlier this year, Kiev banned several opposition-minded broadcasters, as well as all Russian media outlets operating in Ukraine.

Russia filed in August its first inter-state complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, raising concerns about the clampdown on freedom of speech and the press in Ukraine as well as about violations of the European Convention on Human Rights.