MOSCOW, November 6. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has described restrictions on the work of Russian journalists in a number of countries as attempts to impose political censorship.
"An atmosphere of hostility and mistrust is fueled around Russian media outlets in many countries," he said on Wednesday at the conference titled Freedom of the Media and Safety of Journalists in the Russian Federation and in the OSCE Region: Challenges and Opportunities in the Digital Age. "A vivid example of that was a recent event in London under the high-sounding name The Global Conference for Media Freedom. Its organizers and the British authorities prevented Russian representatives, both journalists and diplomats, from taking part in the event."
According to Lavrov, that not only leads to the fragmentation of the global information space but also undermines trust and mutual understanding in interstate relations.
"The purpose of such behind-the-scenes projects, where only the select few are invited, is to erode the existing universal and non-discriminatory media freedom standards, introduce biased regulation of information resources, dividing them into ours and theirs, and, putting it bluntly, to impose political censorship," Lavrov stressed.
The Global Conference for Media Freedom was held in London on July 10-11. Representatives of the RT TV channel and Sputnik news agency were barred from participating in it. Besides, the British authorities refused to issue a visa to a representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry who had been accredited to take part in the event.