Photo credit: Baltic Point / youtube.com
Trials against Russian-speaking journalists have started in Latvia. In total, 16 people will appear before the court, the Baltnews telegram channel reports. All of them, including a photographer and a translator, cooperated with the Sputnik agency and the Baltnews website.
In particular, journalist Marat Kasem is suspected of violating European sanctions. He was detained at the beginning of the year and is still being held in custody.
Back in 2020, the State Security Service opened cases against 14 journalists due to their collaboration with media outlets that are part of the Rossiya Segodnya holding. Allegedly, this was a violation of the sanctions regime due to the inclusion of the CEO of the holding, Dmitry Kiselyov, in the EU sanctions list.
In 2014, the European Union imposed personal sanctions against the general director of Rossiya Segodnya, Dmitry Kiselev. But neither the media group, nor the Baltnews and Sputnik projects, nor the journalists collaborating with them were under sanctions. There is evidence of persecution for political reasons, Baltnews notes.
Appeals to international human rights organizations were fruitless. Neither the UN, nor the Council of Europe, nor the OSCE, nor Reporters Without Borders reacted to the violation of human rights. Only recently, the head of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard, called the situation with the rights of Russian-speaking journalists in Europe distrubing.
Russkiy Mir
