LONDON – The liberal-leaning Russian impartial TV station Dozhd (TV Rain) resumed broadcasting on Monday night from overseas after being pressured to close its Moscow studio following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Dozhd, portrayed within the 2021 movie “Tango with Putin”, was visited and praised in 2011 by then-President Dmitry Medvedev when it was only a yr outdated, and largely apolitical.
However like all Russian impartial media, it has been harassed relentlessly since Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency in 2012.
On Monday, it stated it had acquired a European Union broadcasting licence and could be working from studios in Latvia, France and the Netherlands – in addition to Georgia, the place many Russians uncomfortable with the invasion have moved since February.
It should additionally stream on YouTube, which isn't censored in Russia and is more likely to be the one means most individuals in Russia will be capable of see it.
“As a result of repressive legal guidelines and navy censorship adopted in Russia, we have been pressured to go away our properties. Now we're resuming our work from exterior the nation,” Dozhd’s assertion stated.
As Russia grew to become extra authoritarian, notably after the suppression of protests towards the end result of the 2012 election, a station that known as itself “Optimistic Channel” discovered it might not ignore politics.
In 2014, it was thrown off broadcast networks after conducting a ballot during which respondents stated the Soviet Union ought to have deserted Leningrad to Hitler in 1941 as a substitute of resisting a Nazi siege for nearly 900 days – a subversion of the perfect of wartime resistance and assertion of Russian values that Putin likes to evoke.
In 2021, Dozhd was expelled from the Kremlin press pool and labelled a “overseas agent”. The designation pressured it to append a disclaimer to all its output – now confined to the web – and imposed a number of administrative obligations.
On March 1, Russia’s communications watchdog introduced it was blocking Dozhd’s output, accusing it of spreading “intentionally false details about the actions of Russian navy personnel” in Ukraine. The subsequent day, Dozhd introduced that its staff had left Russia.
Post a Comment