Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the Russian upper house's foreign affairs committee, condemned in an interview with Sputnik Armenia on Thursday Tallinn's audacity to threaten journalists of the Sputnik news agency's Estonian branch with criminal prosecution
YEREVAN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th December, 2019) Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the Russian upper house's foreign affairs committee, condemned in an interview with Sputnik Armenia on Thursday Tallinn's audacity to threaten journalists of the Sputnik news agency's Estonian branch with criminal prosecution.On Wednesday, the Rossiya Segodnya International News Agency said that employees of Sputnik Estonia had received letters from the Baltic country's Police and Border Guard board that warned they would face criminal prosecution unless they stopped working for the news agency by January 1. The Estonian authorities cited the 2014 EU sanctions as a pretext for possible legal action. Sputnik and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan has already asked Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid to not allow the journalists to be arrested.
"From a legal standpoint, the actions of the Estonian authorities against Sputnik Estonia are a flagrant violation of existing Estonian laws and Estonia's international commitments, and from a political standpoint, it is blatant impudence. It is an attempt to prove who is the boss, understanding, of course, that the Estonians would have never ventured to take such illegal actions unless they had been given a go-ahead by the real masters of their western home," he said.
Kosachev promised that Russia would raise the issue within organizations in which Moscow and Tallinn cooperate.
"We will not let it be, that is for sure. In case the Estonian authorities will be watching us, I would like to send them our best, warmest political regards, and tell [them] that they have found themselves in a very ugly situation. This is not a threat but our firm conviction that they need to bring Sputnik Estonia's work back within the legal framework," the chairman said.
According to Rossiya Segodnya's press service, which Sputnik is a part of, the news agency is planning to urge the United Nations; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; Council of Europe; and European Court of Human Rights to address this unprecedented violation of the right to free speech and take measures to protect the right of journalists to work in their professional capacity.
