by Miranda Murray and Alexander Marrow
BERLIN / MOSCOW, December 22 (Reuters) – The satellite broadcast of the German-speaking service of the Russian news channel RT (Russia Today) was interrupted on Wednesday after a few days on the decision of the German authorities, RT not having, according to them, the authorization required.
“The program is in German and is aimed at the German market,” said the telecommunications regulatory authority of the Land of Berlin, where RT has offices, in a statement. “She did not apply for a broadcast license and it was not issued to her.”
At the regulator’s request, the operator Eutelsat ETL.PA withdrew RT Deutsch from the list of its channels broadcast by satellite.
The Kremlin-funded Russian news channel RT, launched in 2005, is viewed by many Western governments as a state propaganda outlet.
The German version was launched on December 16, and its live streaming on YouTube was ceased as of that date, with Google saying the new channel was created in violation of previous restrictions on RT.
Regarding satellite broadcasting, RT denounced an “illegal” initiative and said it was convinced that the regulator’s decision would be overturned by the courts.
The channel believes that a license it holds in Serbia allows it to broadcast in Germany, under the European Convention on Transfrontier Television, an agreement of the Council of Europe to which Berlin and Moscow adhere.
This incident takes place in a tense context between Moscow and the Western powers over Russian troop movements near the borders of Ukraine or Russian gas deliveries to Europe.
Germany and Russia also carried out reciprocal expulsions of diplomats a few days ago following the conviction of a Russian national in Berlin for the murder of a former leader of the Chechen rebellion in a park in the German capital in 2019.
“I do not exclude that we will have to react if this unacceptable situation continues,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said of the ban, accusing “Western partners” of “strangling the media “.
Russian state-controlled media, including the Ruptly video news agency, are well established in Berlin and RT in German will always be visible on its own website.
(Written by Thomas Escritt; French version Jean-Stéphane Brosse, edited by Jean-Michel Bélot)