MINSK, July 9. /TASS/. Some OSCE member countries apply limitations on work of the Russian mass media thus violating the basic principles of the freedom of speech, a member of the Russian delegation to the session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Senator Nikolai Zhuravlev said on Sunday.
"The objects of sanctions measures are the Russian media, while representatives of some countries’ leaderships even would not try hiding this discriminative approach," he said.
"Many occasions of deportation of Russian reporters and ban for entering" Baltic countries are well-known. Those countries "close media representations, apply administrative barriers for effective work" or "introduce tougher regulations for the Internet with clear anti-Russian mood," he said. "An example is the legal initiative of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament), aimed at de-Russification of the information space."
At the same time, he continued, "crimes against reporters remain without responsibility."
Russia is concerned about the attempts "to fragment the information space in the OSCE area," he said. "Under the pretext of protected national interests, some countries neglect the freedom of the media, limit reporters, are intolerant to alternative positions."
"Russia has remained on the positions of maximum openness," he said. "We are trying to observe the legal balance between freedom of speech and responsibility for truthful facts.".