Riga is violating OSCE commitments by its actions against employees of Baltnews and Sputnik Latvia, said on Thursday, December 3, at the Russian permanent mission to the organization.
“We are concerned about the incoming information that the employees of Baltnews and Sputnik Latvia have been charged under a criminal article of violating the EU sanctions regime and the searches taking place there. This is another flagrant violation by Riga of OSCE commitments on freedom of speech and access to information, ”the Russian mission said on Twitter.
Earlier on Thursday, employees of the portals Baltnews and Sputnik Latvia were accused of violating the EU sanctions regime, and they were interrogated. The employees of the portals were searched, equipment and communication equipment were confiscated, and after interrogations they were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
In June, Latvia imposed a ban on the broadcasting of seven RT TV channels, explaining that they are under the “sole control” of Russian TV presenter, CEO of MIA Rossiya Segodnya, Dmitry Kiselev, against whom the Council of the European Union imposed sanctions in 2014.
For the same reason, the Radio and Television Commission, subordinate to the Lithuanian parliament, banned the broadcast of Russian RT channels on July 8.
In March, the authorities of Latvia and Estonia forced the First Baltic TV Channel (PBK) to close the program “News of Estonia”, which was considered the most popular news program among the Russian-speaking population in these countries.
In December 2019, employees of Sputnik Estonia received letters from law enforcement officers of this republic with threats to initiate criminal proceedings against journalists if they did not stop working for Russia Today by 2020. On January 1, 2020, employees of the Estonian Sputnik resigned, and the agency’s website began operating in emergency mode.
Russia condemned the actions of the Baltic states because of the actions against journalists. On July 10, the interim commission of the Federation Council on information policy called on the Russian Foreign Ministry to study the possibility of introducing retaliatory political measures against the authorities of Latvia and Lithuania due to the ban on broadcasts of Russian TV channels of the RT group.