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The Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Maria Zakharova has criticized the UK’s decision to block all British bank accounts belonging to Russia's state-owned English-language TV channel RT.
"It looks like when London left the EU, it abandoned all of its commitments to freedom of speech in Europe. As they say, a new life without bad habits," Zakharova wrote on her Facebook page.
She was referring to a tweet from RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, who said: “Our bank accounts in the UK have been closed. All of our accounts. The decision is not subject for revision. Long live freedom of speech!”
Нам закрыли счета в Британии. Все счета. 'Решение пересмотру не подлежит'. Да здравствует свобода слова!
— Маргарита Симоньян (@M_Simonyan) 17 October 2016
Simonyan told the news channel Rossiya 24 that the British government had no grounds for this move, since RT carries out “absolutely transparent work there and [has] transparent financing.”
The authorities responsible have apparently not given any reasons for doing so.
RT has been broadacsting 24-hour news in English from Moscow as an offshoot of the RIA Novosti news agency since 2005. Simonyan has been Editor-in-Chief since its very beginning.
Source: TASS
