Rossiya Segodnya Editor-in-Chief Thanks EFJ Head for Standing Up for News Agency

The editor-in-chief of Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency and the RT broadcaster condemned the refusal of the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the European Union to provide the agency with accreditation to cover the informal meeting of EU foreign ministers.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency and the RT broadcaster, on Friday commented on the statement by European Journalist Federation (EFJ) General Secretary Ricardo Gutierrez, condemning the refusal of the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the European Union to provide the agency with accreditation to cover the informal meeting of EU foreign ministers. 

The requests for accreditation to the meeting of three correspondents of Rossiya Segodnya were rejected without explanation of reasons. The agency has for the first time faced such restrictions in getting access to coverage of ministerial level events under the aegis of the European Union.

"It is very pleasing that, besides Estonia, there is a couple of dozen other states in the European Union. Many of them, as we see, are quite reasonable. Special thanks to Mr. Gutierrez for the fact that, at the risk of being out of fashion, he allowed himself to stand up for the freedom of the European word," Simonyan told Sputnik.

Gutierrez described the refusal as "a serious attack on media freedom," and the EFJ has issued an alert level 2 over the situation.