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LONDON, March 31 (Reuters) – Russia’s state-funded RT television channel said on Thursday that British sanctions on Russian state media organisations showed the imminent end of media freedom and the blinkered nature of officials who thought anything Russian was wrong.
Britain on Thursday announced sanctions on 14 more Russian entities and people, including on state media organisations behind RT and Sputnik and some of their senior figures, saying it was targetting those who push out President Vladimir Putin’s “fake news and narratives”.
“With this action the UK government has sounded the death knell for media freedom in Britain,” Anna Belkina, RT’s deputy editor in chief, told Reuters.
“We will continue to bring the news to audiences that wish to seek it, and prevent a media echo chamber from being orchestrated by blinkered officials hell-bent on conflating anything remotely Russian with wrong,” Belkina said.
Belkina said Britain had tried to silence both RT and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
“If you ever seek to reveal the truth and counter the UK government’s party line, whether you are Julian Assange or RT, they will come for you, and seek to silence you, and claim false legitimacy in doing so,” she said. (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kate Holton and James Davey)
