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Simonyan: Decision on RT's Broadcast End in Washington, DC Grid Made in February

© Sputnik / Evgeny Biyatov / Go to the mediabankRussia Today channel
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MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The decision to end the broadcasting of the RT broadcaster in Washington, DC was made in February, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT and Sputnik news agency, said Friday.

"Bloomberg has written that our broadcasting will end starting from April 1. We had to make it public despite the fact that we kept silence about it from February, because we had a hope that there would be a possible setback and there were several possibilities to keep our broadcasting in these networks in Washington," Simonyan told the Rossiya 1 channel.

The journalist added that at the moment the last hope had gone.

Commenting on the statement of the WNVT television service provider, in which the company said that apart from RT it would end broadcasting of a number of TV channels, such as TRT World, DW-TV, Arirang, CGTN 1, CGTN 2, CNC, Africa Today TV, France 24, Netviet and Telesur starting from Sunday, Simonyan said that RT had been informed about it two months ago

RT channel - Sputnik International
RT Being Forced Off Cable Channel in Washington, DC Area
"Yesterday, when Bloomberg has written about it, it has become a big story, a big scandal. Against this backdrop, today they have published a statement on their website, saying that they will turn off not only us, but all foreign TV channels starting from April. Maybe it's true. But the fact is that we have turned off two months ago and we have been told the reason behind this," the editor-in-chief said, adding that the registration under the FARA was this reason.

On Thursday, Simonyan said that the broadcaster's television channel was removed from the programming of the television service provider that aired RT programs in Washington, DC, adding that the fact that US authorities had obliged RT to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was behind the decision. The Bloomberg news agency reported that the broadcasting will end overnight into Sunday.

According to Simonyan, after RT has registered under the FARA a campaign aimed at limiting the broadcasting activities of the TV channel has been launched.

RT America had to register as a foreign agent in November, at the request of the US Department of Justice. The broadcaster then promptly lost its Congress accreditation. Simonyan pointed out that the registration as a foreign agent put RT at a disadvantage compared to other foreign media outlets working in the United States.

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