LONDON: The BBC announced on Tuesday that it was resuming English-language broadcasting from Russia, after suspending reporting as it examined tough new media laws.
The broadcaster last Friday halted its journalists’ work in Russia after lawmakers moved to impose lengthy jail terms for publishing “fake news” about the army, as part of efforts to muffle dissent over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
BBC director-general Tim Davie said the law could “criminalize the process of independent journalism” and warned staff faced prosecution “simply for doing their jobs.”
But in a new statement, the corporation said it had “considered the new legislation alongside the urgent need to report from inside Russia.”
“After careful deliberation we have decided to resume English-language reporting from Russia this evening (Tuesday 8 March), after it was temporarily suspended at the end of last week,” it added.
“We will tell this crucial part of the story independently and impartially, adhering to the BBC’s strict editorial standards.
“The safety of our staff in Russia remains our number one priority.”
A number of foreign media have suspending reporting from inside Russia, including the New York Times, Canada’s CBC/Radio-Canada, Germany’s ARD and ZDF, and Bloomberg News, plus US channels CNN and CBS.
BBC to resume English-language reporting from Russia
https://arab.news/jhhes
BBC to resume English-language reporting from Russia
- ‘We will tell this crucial part of the story independently and impartially, adhering to the BBC’s strict editorial standards’
China’s national security agency in Hong Kong summons international media representatives
HONG KONG: China’s national security agency in Hong Kong summoned international media representatives for a “regulatory talk” on Saturday, saying some had spread false information and smeared the government in recent reports on a deadly fire and upcoming legislative elections.
Senior journalists from several major outlets operating in the city, including AFP, were summoned to the meeting by the Office for Safeguarding National Security (OSNS), which was opened in 2020 following Beijing’s imposition of a wide-ranging national security law on the city.
Through the OSNS, Beijing’s security agents operate openly in Hong Kong, with powers to investigate and prosecute national security crimes.
“Recently, some foreign media reports on Hong Kong have disregarded facts, spread false information, distorted and smeared the government’s disaster relief and aftermath work, attacked and interfered with the Legislative Council election, (and) provoked social division and confrontation,” an OSNS statement posted online shortly after the meeting said.
At the meeting, an official who did not give his name read out a similar statement to media representatives.
He did not give specific examples of coverage that the OSNS had taken issue with, and did not take questions.
The online OSNS statement urged journalists to “not cross the legal red line.”
“The Office will not tolerate the actions of all anti-China and trouble-making elements in Hong Kong, and ‘don’t say we didn’t warn you’,” it read.
For the past week and a half, news coverage in Hong Kong has been dominated by a deadly blaze on a residential estate which killed at least 159 people.
Authorities have warned against crimes that “exploit the tragedy” and have reportedly arrested at least three people for sedition in the fire’s aftermath.
Dissent in Hong Kong has been all but quashed since Beijing brought in the national security law, after huge and sometimes violent protests in 2019.
Hong Kong’s electoral system was revamped in 2021 to ensure that only “patriots” could hold office, and the upcoming poll on Sunday will select a second batch of lawmakers under those rules.
