Liz Truss: UK ban on RT after false Nazi slurs may lead to BBC ban by Moscow
Foreign secretary warned Russia's state broadcaster being censored for alleging evidence of a 'Nazification in Crimea in 2014' will lead to British media being silenced, and Russians being prevented from 'hearing the truth'
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has warned that banning the Russian broadcaster RT from UK screens after it aired false Nazi slurs against Ukraine “is likely to lead to channels such as the BBC being banned in Russia.”
Speaking in the Commons on Monday, Truss was told how RT had screened a documentary last weekend alleging evidence of a “Nazification in Crimea in 2014.”
Asked by the SNP MP Chris Law, whether she planned to follow the lead of the EU and “shut down RT” and the other Russian channel Sputnik in this country, the Foreign Secretary urged caution.
She told MPs: “We are looking at what can be done with RT, but if we ban RT in the United Kingdom, that is likely to lead to channels such as the BBC being banned in Russia, and we want the Russian population to hear the truth about what Vladimir Putin is doing.
“There is a careful judgment to be made, and that is something the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is looking at.”
The Board of Deputies had issued a statement on Monday condemning Vladimir Putin’s “trivialisation and distortion of the historical facts of the Holocaust.”
She later added “we must do all we can to stiffen the resolve of those in Russia who are disgusted by President Putin’s actions in their name.
“That is why it is important to reach out through channels such as the BBC, and that we communicate clearly. The Foreign Office recently stood up its information unit, which provides communications to challenge disinformation from the Putin regime.”
The Kremlin-backed television station RT could lose its licence to broadcast in the UK after media regulator Ofcom launched 15 separate investigations into its news coverage of the war.
Among the claims repeatedly aired by the channel and Putin, is that Russia is involved in a “denazification” effort in its invasion of Ukraine.
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