Response of power

The State Duma supported the protocol order on the verification of the activities of Russian services "Voice of America", "Radio Liberty" and CNN for compliance with Russian law. This is reported by Interfax.

The first deputy head of the State Duma committee on CIS CIS Constantine Zatulin made such an initiative. He noted that on Tuesday, the Senator Senator Jin Shahin introduced a bill to the US Congress, granting additional powers to the Ministry of Justice solely in order to verify the Russian television company Russia Today to comply with American legislation on foreign agents. "

"Given that the persecution on the basis of a specially adopted repressive legislative act can damage not only the business reputation of the Russian television company, but also the Russian Federation as a whole, consider it necessary to take constituent response measures," the instructions said.

The State Duma supported Zatulin’s proposal to give an order to the Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications to organize an audit of the American media for compliance with their activities to Russian law.

In December, the former US Ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaol, in his column at The Washington Post, wrote that the employees of Russian RT and Sputnik agency may be recognized as foreign agents . These media controlled by the Russian government, Macfol explained, during the last presidential campaign in the United States openly campaigned for candidate Donald Trump, and Sputnik even launched a hashtag #CrooKEDHILLARY (English. CONSIVE HILLARI - about Trump's opponent in the elections). “We have laws that do not allow foreign governments to provide candidates with financial support,” the former ambassador noted. “Do we should adopt laws that block and other support from them?”

The development of such laws is a difficult matter, McFol continued, since the first amendment to the US Constitution guarantees freedom of speech. “However, our legislators should not cope with this problem?” The publication said. “Should employees of Sputnik and RT receive accreditation as journalists or as foreign agents in accordance with the Law on Registration of Foreign Agents? I don’t know. But we need to know this.”