The UK Embassy in Moscow has falsely claimed that an employee of the Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom had allegedly received accreditation for the Global Conference for Media Freedom in London but did not make use of it, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th November, 2019) The UK Embassy in Moscow has falsely claimed that an employee of the Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom had allegedly received accreditation for the Global Conference for Media Freedom in London but did not make use of it, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.The conference gathered together global leaders, media professionals, journalists, civil society and academia in the UK capital from July 10-11. The RT broadcaster and Sputnik news agency were barred from participating in the event.
"Russian Foreign Minister [Sergey Lavrov] was speaking about this today. The UK Embassy in Moscow has just issued a relevant comment saying boldly that they want to correct the Russian minister and say that some of the Russian media received accreditation and participated; RT and Sputnik did not receive accreditation due to their active role in spreading disinformation, and that a member of the Russian Embassy in London received accreditation but did not make use of it. Here's a fake," Zakharova said�at an international conference, organized by the office of the representative on media freedom with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
According to Zakharova, a representative of the Russian Embassy was not expected to take part in the conference, unlike the deputy head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Information and Press Department, who was denied visa for the event.
Earlier in the day, Lavrov said that the denial of accreditation for Russian journalists to the Global Conference for Media Freedom had been aimed at diluting the existing standards of media freedom and imposing political censorship.
RT and Sputnik have faced severe criticism in the West over the past several years for allegedly delivering impartial coverage of news. In September, RT and Sputnik were banned from the Conservative Party Conference 2019 in the UK city of Manchester. Sputnik was denied accreditation to the conference on the eve of the event, without explanation. The application for accreditation was submitted one month prior.
