Posts
RT silenced in Washington DC, proving FARA crackdown not just formality
RT,
30
March, 2018
RT
programming was removed from its two broadcast frequencies in the DC
area. The move proves that claims made by the US government that the
channel’s registration as a foreign agent would not affect its work
were false.
Audiences
in the Washington, DC area are no longer able to tune in to RT's
regular air broadcasts. Part of the reason is that MHz Networks, a
Virginia-based not-for-profit distributor of international
entertainment and news programming, decided to auction their licenses
to frequencies previously used to broadcast RT, along with a dozen
other outlets. The development was reported by Bloomberg on Thursday,
which said that the change will take place on April 1. The auction of
licenses happened in March 2017.
RT
can now reveal that the channel was in fact dropped by its two signal
broadcasters in the area, WNVT and WNVC, on February 2, 2018. This
fact was later independently confirmed by MHz Networks through the
Associated Press.
Anna
Belkina, RT’s chief of communications, said that although the
channel is not “at liberty to disclose the details, we know that
this decision was linked to RT's forced registration as a 'foreign
agent' in the US.” The US Department of Justice forced RT America
to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in 2017.
Belkina
added that “it is highly disappointing that despite repeated
assurances that FARA status would not impact RT's reporting and
broadcasting capabilities, the registration, in fact, has placed
undue burden on multiple areas of RT operations, and pressure on our
partners as well, thus unequivocally demonstrating that the spirit of
the FARA law is discriminatory even if the letter of that law isn’t.”
RT
will continue to be available to viewers in the DC area on other
platforms, including satellite.
Commenting
on the development, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday
that it was part of a “concerning and frightening trend” in the
US, which represented a “discriminatory policy towards the media in
the United States.”
“We
are carefully studying the situation and consider it very dangerous
and consequential,” he added.
FARA
was first passed to fight Nazi Germany’s propaganda and was mostly
used to highlight lobbying for foreign governments. RT’s forced
registration was part of Washington’s retaliation for the channel’s
alleged interference with the 2016 presidential election – which
was how the US intelligence community described RT’s reporting on
American domestic problems and flaws in its foreign policy.
The
registration previously cost RT journalists their access to the US
Congress.
Frederick
Thomas, the founder and president of MHZ Networks, told Bloomberg
that the company did indeed contact the DoJ after it targeted Reston
Translator LLC, the company producing content for RT America, as part
of its FARA crackdown on Russian media reporting for US audiences.
But he denied the decision to get rid of the broadcast frequencies,
which affected RT’s presence in Washington, DC, had anything to do
with it.
“It
has more to do with the spectrum auction,” he said.
The
development is not surprising, considering that the legal groundwork
for such moves was passed in September 2017 as part of the National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Buried in the military spending
provisions was a small amendment that protects distributors from
legal action if they refuse to drop “content that is owned or
controlled by the Government of the Russian Federation.”
