HELSINKI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd January, 2020) The Russian Embassy in Estonia on Wednesday called on the country's authorities to allow journalists from Sputnik news agency to resume their work.
On October 18, 2019, the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, which Sputnik is a part of, 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 stopped working for the agency by January 1. Estonia cited the EU sanctions against several Russian nationals, including the head of Rossiya Segodnya, Dmitry Kiselev, as its rationale, despite Rossiya Segodnya not being owned by Kisilev as it is not a private organization.
"We would like the Estonian side to remember about the international commitments to guarantee freedom of speech that it has undertaken by giving the employees of Sputnik Estonia information agency to return to their professional duties," the embassy said in a statement.
It recalled that since January 1 thousands of Sputnik Estonia readers have been robbed of the opportunity to receive information from the agency due to the pressure from the Estonian government.
"We have evaluated such unprecedented measures of shutting undesirable journalists on multiple occasions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov talked about the same thing during the press conference on the results of 2019, expressing outrage over the actions against Sputnik Estonia from an EU member state, which go against the values that are proclaimed and protected in Europe," the embassy noted.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that Russia would do everything in its power to support Sputnik's work in other countries.
