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Blocking of RT Accounts in UK Reminiscent of Dictatorship – Ex-Scottish Leader

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Blocking of the RT accounts in the UK by NatWest bank is a move associated with a dictatorship rather than democracy, former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond said Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — RT's Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said that the international broadcaster's accounts had been blocked in the United Kingdom. RT UK said it had been informed by NatWest, a large state-owned retailer, that its banking arrangements with RT were null and void.

"Certainly, it was an extraordinary proposition. If, for example, the BBC were using Russian banking and a state-owned bank were to close its banking facilities, then politicians in this country rightly would be jumping up on that as a restriction of freedom of speech. And if indeed it turns out that a state-owned bank like the NatWest is actually going to close the banking facilities of RT, then that would be the sort of thing that happens in a tin pot dictatorship, not in a liberal democracy," Salmond told RT in an interview.

In an RT studio - Sputnik International
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He stressed the necessity of "maximum number of points of view and the maximum amount of information."

Salmond also expressed hope that those UK lawmakers who believe in freedom of speech would speak out against the NatWest move "as we would speak out if the BBC were being sanctioned elsewhere."

RT operates a number of cable and satellite television channels in a number of languages and is directed at a foreign audience. The channels provide 24-hour news coverage, as well as airing documentaries, talk shows and debates.

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