The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation included in the list of Voice of America, Radio Liberty and seven more media

The Ministry of Justice of Russia published the first list of media that has been assigned the status of a foreign agent, among them the Voice of America and Radio Liberty.

As reported on the website of the department on Tuesday, December 5, the list included nine media: “Voice of America”, Radio “Free Europe”/Radio “Freedom”, “Caucasus. Realiy”, “Crimea. Reali”, the TV channel “Present time”, “Siberia. Realia”, “Factograph”, Tatar-Bashkir Service of Radio Svoboda, Tatar-Bashkir "IDEL. Reali".

The source of Interfax in the State Duma specified that all nine media will be closed to the State Duma.

The interlocutor of the agency recalled that on Monday, the Duma Committee on Control and Rules unanimously supported the draft State Duma to ban the visit of the lower house with representatives of the US media, classified as foreign agents.

It is expected that the Council of the Duma on Tuesday will include this document on the agenda of the meeting on Wednesday, and immediately after its adoption, the decision will enter into force. Thus, this ban will begin to act, as expected, from December 6th. All Duma factions support this measure as a mirror response to the actions of the United States regarding the Russian media.

The Committee of the Federation Council for Regulations also discusses the issue of possible access to the upper house of the media-foreigners. Many senators offer to support the State Duma in this matter, said the deputy head of the committee Sergey Popov.

In turn, the secretary of the Central Election Commission Maya Grishina told TASS that the media-foreign agents will be able to work in the elections in Russia to accredit the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The inclusion of foreign media in the list of foreign agents is an targeted measure that will be canceled if Washington stops the persecution of Russian media in the United States, the head of the Commission of the Council of the Council of State Sovereignty Andrei Klimov told Interfax.

Recall that at the end of November, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that extends the status of a foreign agent to foreign media working in Russia. According to the provisions of the law, the media will apply to the media with the status of the foreign agent and the obligations provided for non -profit organizations - foreign agents. They will also face a similar responsibility for such NPOs for violation of the law. The Ministry of Justice received the right to determine the media-foreign agents. The only criterion is to receive funding from abroad.

The developed norms were a response to the demand of the US Ministry of Justice for RT America - the American branch of the Russian television company - to register as a foreign state in the United States. Later, the RT television channel correspondents were deprived of accreditation at the US Congress. In the State Duma, they decided to act mirror and offered to forbid American journalists to visit the lower house.

Recently, a law on major fines for the media-foreign agents was made to the State Duma.