The developments around Sputnik Estonia, whose employees were threatened with criminal prosecution unless they stop working for the media outlet, should not be ignored at the European level, Leonid Slutsky, the head of the Russian lower house's foreign affairs committee, told Sputnik on Friday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th January, 2020) The developments around Sputnik Estonia, whose employees were threatened with criminal prosecution unless they stop working for the media outlet, should not be ignored at the European level, Leonid Slutsky, the head of the Russian lower house's foreign affairs committee, told Sputnik on Friday.
At his annual news conference earlier in the day, acting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the Estonian authorities' actions against the news agency were outrageous, and accused the European Union of not doing enough to help.
"The situation with Sputnik's employees in Estonia is beyond all moral and legal norms. This is actual Russophobic blackmail by the authorities. Their argumentation does not stand up to criticism. Just as the lack of reaction from the EU structures. Such things are a direct violation of human rights and freedom of speech and should not be silenced at the pan-European level," Slutsky said.
The lawmaker expressed confidence that the Russian delegation would speak up about the illegality of such actions against media at all interparliamentary platforms, including the OSCE and the Council of Europe's parliamentary assemblies.
In October, the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, Sputnik's parent company, said that the 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 quit working for the news agency by January 1. The Estonian authorities cited the 2014 EU sanctions against several Russian nationals and companies as grounds for their actions. Rossiya Segodnya has since insisted it is not mentioned in any EU sanctions lists.
Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu told Sputnik on Thursday that pressure on the Estonian branch of the agency had nothing to do with the news agency, per se, and everything to do with the EU sanctions against Dmitry Kiselev, the head of Rossiya Segodnya.
During his annual end-of-year press conference in December, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would do everything to support Sputnik's work abroad, and that it was important to continue to work in countries that are afraid of the media's "influence on the minds of people."
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Desir has criticized Estonia for unfairly punishing Sputnik agency for Kiselev's presence on an individual EU sanctions list.
