The recent publication of a list of employees of Sputnik's UK bureau in The Times newspaper is a disgraceful attack on the freedom of information, Italian lower house member and Secretary of Foreign Affairs Commission Vito Comencini told Sputnik.
ROME (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th December, 2018) The recent publication of a list of employees of Sputnik's UK bureau in The Times newspaper is a disgraceful attack on the freedom of information, Italian lower house member and Secretary of Foreign Affairs Commission Vito Comencini told Sputnik.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.
"I fully support the Sputnik agency and the freedom of expression. I do not know how much an Italian parliamentarian can comment on events in the United Kingdom, but I want to express solidarity in connection with this serious attack that the agency has suffered. Because it violates the freedom of speech and the right to freely spread information by these journalists," Comencini said.
The decision to release the list of employees is "shameful," the lawmaker noted.
"At a broad level, it is obvious that the majority of media is controlled by large capital and serves the interests of certain lobbies, providing a distorted interpretation of events and political facts. Fortunately, there are information agencies like Sputnik, which aim to talk about the news in a free and correct way. From this point, they should be protected, and not considered as a threat, as in the United Kingdom," Comencini 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.
