Simonyan On The Times' List, Photos Of Sputnik Employees: Happy Upcoming 1933

Simonyan on The Times' List, Photos of Sputnik Employees: Happy Upcoming 1933

Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT broadcaster and Sputnik news agency, on Monday congratulated the United Kingdom on the "upcoming 1933" as a response to the recent publication of a list of employees of Sputnik's UK bureau in The Times newspaper

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th December, 2018) Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT broadcaster and Sputnik news agency, on Monday congratulated the United Kingdom on the "upcoming 1933" as a response to the recent publication of a list of employees of Sputnik's UK bureau in The Times newspaper.

On Sunday, The Times published a list of journalists working at Sputnik's UK bureau in Edinburgh as well as an appeal by Alex Cole-Hamilton, a member of the Scottish parliament from Scottish Liberal Democrats, to have journalists of Sputnik internet radio station and RT broadcaster be deprived of their assets in the United Kingdom. The Times also published photos of eight Sputnik employees in Edinburgh and listed their positions.

"The Times publishes a list of Names of our UK journalists and their photos under the heading about 'Kremlin stooge.' My congratulations on the upcoming 1933, my British friends," Simonyan posted on her Telegram channel.

The year 1933 was when Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was appointed as German chancellor. Later that year, then-German President Paul von Hindenburg published, on Hitler's advice, the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State, which enabled the government to control political events in the country and its press. Historians consider the decree to have been a key step in the establishment of a one-party Nazi state in Germany.

The practice of publishing such lists of journalists was launched by Ukraine's Mirotvorets website, which is known for revealing personal information of people who are considered to be "enemies of Ukraine," including Ukrainian and foreign journalists who covered the military conflict in Donbas, public figures who visited Crimea, and others. Following the publication of their personal data, some of these individuals faced personal threats.

Such actions have been widely criticized in Moscow and some other states.

In early December, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) reached an unanimous agreement on the safety of journalists and media pluralism for the first time in 27 years. Commenting on the issue, the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova said that the adopted OSCE document on the protection of journalists reflected concerns about the illegal interference with journalists' private lives that threatens their safety.