MOSCOW, July 28 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow has expressed hope that Western governments will uphold freedom of speech and avoid censoring media coverage of the Ukraine crisis, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.
“Let's hope that our Western partners will observe the principles of free information and access to it," Lavrov said at a briefing Monday, adding that Russia is concerned by the United Kingdom’s attempt to impose restrictions on English-language broadcasts of Russia’s RT channel and views the move as “absolutely blatant censoring."
“I hope that the government of the United Kingdom or any other country will stop short of entangling the media into political games by forcing them to serve the short-term goals of this or that government," Lavrov said.
Addressing the journalists, Russia’s top diplomat promised to continue helping them “establish the facts” and expressed hope that “these facts are not censored.”
Lavrov noted that a BBC report was recently deleted from the company’s website.
Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, said earlier it was considering whether to investigate RT television following complaints from viewers about the channel’s coverage of the Malaysian Air Boeing crash in Ukraine.
The regulator informed RIA Novosti that it has received four complaints from viewers regarding RT’s coverage of the Boeing 777 crash. Three TV viewers said the coverage was not objective and one complained about video footage of dead bodies.
Ofcom said last week the decision on whether to investigate RT’s coverage would be made based on the footage that the regulator requested RT to hand over.