Europa: siempre se puede caer más bajo

La foto muestra el preciso instante en que miembros del Parlamento Europeo levantan sus manos para votar a favor de duras sanciones contra los medios rusos Sputnik y Russia Today. ¡Duro con los rusos, chicos! Y arriba las corpos de Occidente, esas que te informan de todo lo que pasa!

Las tres noticias que siguen son del Sputnik de hoy:


Título: EU Adopts Resolution on Russian Media Amid Panic, Disunion - Swiss Press Club 

Texto: The European Parliament adopted a resolution on counteracting Russian media as it was in panic amid the plurality of opinions on the state of international affairs, for instance, on Russian policy toward Syria, President of the Swiss Press Club Guy Mettan told RIA Novosti on Thursday. 

GENEVA (Sputnik) — On Wednesday, the European Parliament voted in favor of a resolution on countering Russian media outlets, such as the Sputnik news agency and the RT broadcaster. As many as 304 voted in favor of the document, 179 voted against and 208 abstained. With a total of 691 officials taking part in the vote, less than half supported the resolution. 

The resolution said that Sputnik and RT posed a danger to European unity and called for extra European Commission funding for counter-propaganda projects. "I think they [members of the European Parliament] began to panic because they decided that despite all their efforts to establish a single point of view, it does not work with the European public. So they started to panic. And that is why, the nationalists and extremists from Eastern Europe came out with this proposal," Mettan, who is also the author of the book, titled "The West vs Russia – a thousand year long war: Russophobia from Charlemange to the Ukrainian Crisis," said. 

The European politicians realized that public opinion in Europe toward Russia was changing to positive, and people began to understand Russian policy in Syria, Mettan added. "I think this decision is regrettable since the European Union is able to protect the freedom of expression only by resorting to prohibition of another side. And there is an obvious contradiction in this approach. The resolution of the European Parliament is completely incomprehensible and it runs counter all the stances previously announced by the bloc," Mettan stressed. 

'1984': EU Resolution on Russian Media First Step Toward 'Total Censorship' He suggested that the implementation of such a resolution would lead to a scandal, adding that various press associations should react to the issue since the resolution was unacceptable. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the move demonstrated "degradation" of how the West perceived democracy. He praised the news agency Sputnik and the international broadcaster RT for their work, saying he hoped the resolution would not entail any curbs on Russian news outlets.


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Título: Latin American Media Stands in Solidarity With Sputnik Over EU Media Resolution

Texto: On Wednesday, the European Parliament approved a resolution equating the need to counteract Sputnik and RT with resistance to Daesh propaganda. Since then, a host of alternative media voices from around the world have come out to support the right of Russian media to present its point of view. Latin American journalists were no exception. 

Syrian Radio Station Director 'Shocked' by EU Resolution Against Russian Media In a vote of 304 to 179, with 208 lawmakers abstaining, the European Union's Parliament adopted a resolution which claims that Russian foreign language media and non-state actors like Daesh and other terrorist groups were essentially equally dangerous sources of disinformation and propaganda, both posing a threat to Europe's unity and its democratic values. The bill specifically cited the Sputnik News Agency and the RT television news network as media threats. 

Speaking to Sputnik, Latin American journalists and media figures voiced their concern with the resolution, saying that they saw it as little more than an attack on media freedom and the freedom of speech. Maria Jose Braga, president of Brazil's National Federation of Journalists (FENAJ) said as much, telling Sputnik that the EU parliament's resolution is an open attack on the freedom of media, and against media workers. What Braga found most concerning was the implicit suggestion, outlined in the text of the resolution, that Russian media could be equated to terrorists. 

"When media are equated with terrorist organizations, their journalists become terrorists," she complained. "We believe that all organizations worldwide specializing in the protection of journalists should express their position on this issue," Braga noted. 

For her part, Victoria Alfaro, president of the Uruguayan Press Association, also condemned the European lawmakers' decision. "It's strange that this resolution is directed against media outlets whose position is fundamentally different from the opinions which we are used to seeing in other media," she said. "Because these media outlets broadcast to huge audiences, one gets the sense that we are talking about censorship." 

Raul Kollmann, a well-known columnist for the Argentinian daily newspaper Pagina, told Sputnik that he too had no doubt in his mind that this was a press freedom issue. "At a time when the mainstream media repeat what governments and multinational companies say, the voices that say the opposite  -which see the world in a different way, are often silenced." 

"Countries, Russia included, have every right to have their voices heard," Kollmann stressed. "If this right is secured only by the so-called free market…this could end up only strengthening lies and falsehoods, such as the [famous fabrications about] weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or the concealment of human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay and other illegal prisons." 

Alberto Lopez Girondo, international editor at Argentina's Tiempo newspaper, also came out in defense of Russian foreign-language media. Unfortunately, he said, "Europeans prefer it that voices in the world which called their actions into question were not heard." 

"Any opinions which point out the fact of Western countries' support for terrorist organizations – these are the voices that cause the most concern for Europe, since they explain what European [politicians] are really doing," Girondo noted. For example, "if they claim to be the victims of waves of immigration, who was it that actually provoked it?" 

Finally, Samuel Blixen, a prominent journalist and associate professor at the University of Uruguay, told Sputnik that he found the accusation made in the European Parliament's resolution against Russian media simply "shameful." EU lawmakers' decision was unacceptable, Blixen stressed, because "these political operations impinge on media which by [Europe's] own criteria are transparent." 

Accordingly, the journalist suggested that instead of equating Russian media with Daesh, observers should instead consider the EU parliament's resolution as "state terrorism."  "It is bordering on the absurd when a body like the European Parliament issues such a declaration against media which broadcasts around the world," Blixen noted.


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Título: '1984': EU Resolution on Russian Media First Step Toward 'Total Censorship'

Texto:  The resolution adopted by the European Parliament against Russia's media outlets is the first step towards imposing censorship against all media sources which express different views from those promoted by the EU leadership, Italian journalist Giulietto Chiesa warns. The European Parliament's decision to crack down on Russia's news websites, most notably Sputnik and RT, and considering them alongside terrorist groups like Daesh and Al-Qaeda, has stirred a heated debate among international media pundits and independent observers. 

"I write for Sputnik and cooperate with different Russian television broadcasters. So what will they do to me now?" Giulietto Chiesa, an Italian journalist and Director of PandoraTV.it, asks rhetorically. According to Chiesa, the adoption of the controversial resolution is a step towards imposing censorship not only on Russian news websites but on all media outlets which express a point of view different from that of the EU establishment. 

"To put it bluntly: the aim of the resolution, whatever arguments are cited, is to impose censorship against all media — both Russian and non-Russian — which express opinions different from those postulated by Western leaders," Chiesa writes in his op-ed for Sputnik Italia. 

EU Resolution on Russian Media 'Insult to Daesh Victims' – Serbian Minister The Italian journalist calls attention to the fact that in accordance with the criteria cited by the resolution every citizen of the European Union who supports, reproduces or disseminates opinions and critique of the West's actions can be now branded as "a supporter of the Kremlin propaganda" that poses a "threat" to the sovereignty of this or that EU member state or the bloc in general. "It is clear to anyone that this is the way to kick off a 'witch hunt', that would ultimately silence all forms of political dissent in Europe," the Italian journalist warns. 

"Therefore what lies at the root of the problem is not just the right to spread the views expressed by the Russian media in the West, but the right of free speech and expression for all journalists, bloggers and media activists who work and live in the West," Chiesa highlights. © SPUTNIK/ EU Resolution on Sputnik, RT: 'Media Siege Formulated by the United States' Commenting on the result of the vote in the European Parliament the Italian journalist notes that the vote showed a change of mind toward Russia among EU lawmakers. 

While there is a powerful anti-Russian lobby comprising of a hundred or so MPs, apparently nostalgic of the Cold War times, this time the resolution was passed with 304 votes, while 179 legislators were against and 208 abstained from voting, Chiesa underscores. De facto, the number of those who did not support the controversial document exceeded the number of those who voted for it, he stresses.  

Chiesa asks ironically whether the EU establishment would now label the French presidential candidate Francois Fillon as "a Kremlin propagandist" and a "threat" to the European sovereignty given the fact that during his interview with Radio Europe 1 Fillon urged his audience not to believe that Russia is Europe's enemy. 

Journalists in the Plenary chamber of the European Parliament (File) Jugoslav Cosic of N1 news channel, CNN International's local broadcast partner and affiliate in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia, echoes Chiesa. Citing the resolution's passage de facto equating Russian media organizations to al-Qaeda and Daesh terrorist groups' propaganda, the journalist stresses that it is highly inappropriate to paint journalists and terrorists with one and the same brush. 

"I don't think it is right to equate the work of Russian journalists (or any other media workers) and the actions of terrorist groups. I also believe it's not right to brand mass media of any country as a propaganda tool," Cosic told Sputnik. If a media outlet has indeed been spotted disseminating "propaganda" then the evidence needs to be presented to prove this instead of labeling all media as instruments of propaganda, he noted. "This greatly worries me, as we had a very negative experience of group stigmatizing here in Serbia, when NATO bombed the building of RTS channel in 1999, justifying that as 'the struggle against the Milosevic propaganda machine.' The airstrikes killed 16 of our colleagues," the journalist emphasized. 

The resolution adopted by the European Parliament claims that the Sputnik news agency, the RT channel, the Russkiy Mir foundation and the Russian Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Cultural Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo) pose a threat to the European Union. To resist the "Russian propaganda" the document calls on the EU member states to cooperate with NATO to develop common mechanisms to counter "hybrid threats."