MOSCOW, November 9. /TASS/. The demand by US Department of Justice that Russia’s RT television channel should register as a foreign agent is an obvious discriminatory measure and the US authorities’ dirty political game, Konstantin Kosachev, Chairman of Russia’s Federation Council (upper house) International Affairs Committee, told reporters on Thursday.
"This decision by the US Department of Justice is a very dirty political game, which is obviously a discriminatory measure, because it is applied selectively to a Russian media outlet," Kosachev said.
The senator added that he could give dozens and even hundreds of examples of foreign media activities in the US, including government-funded TV companies, which do not face this kind of demands by the US Department of Justice. "That means that, in this case, the issue at hand is not the rule of law. The issue at hand is the unilateral discrimination of a certain media outlet, which broadcasts the news about the United States, its foreign and domestic policy and developments throughout the world the US officials do not like," the senator said.
Kosachev stressed that this is "an obvious encroachment on the freedom of speech the United States seems to nurture and cherish." "However, in actual fact, all this turns out to be nothing more than demagoguery," he concluded.
The US Department of Justice earlier said the US branch of Russia’s RT television channel, RT America, should register as a foreign agent by November 13. In case of failure to comply with this demand within this period of time, the bank accounts of RT America can be frozen, while its head could face arrest, the TV network reported.