London – Here is the comment of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Italy in relation to the letter-appeal of the six directors of the main Italian newspapers to the Ambassador-designate of the Russian Federation in the Italian Republic, Alexey Paramonov
“In relation to the appeal of the six directors of the main Italian newspapers to the Ambassador-designate of the Russian Federation in the Italian Republic, Alexey Paramonov, dated 10 April last We would like to draw your attention to the following.
In compliance with consolidated diplomatic procedures, it is not up to a new Ambassador who has not yet arrived at the headquarters and who has not officially assumed his duties, to make public statements. Nonetheless, the Embassy deems it necessary to comment on this collective appeal.
The correspondent of the American newspaper Wall Street Journal, Evan Gershkovich, was caught red-handed trying to obtain secret information about one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex. Such activities have nothing to do with his professional craft, and the arrest itself on suspicion of espionage for a foreign state was carried out in full compliance with the requirements of the law and the norms of Russian legislation.
As is customary in every country where the rule of law reigns, including, undoubtedly, Italy, it is up to the court to ascertain the truth and the measures of responsibility for the crimes committed. In this context, the requests of the honorable representatives of the newspapers of the country which proclaims among its essential legal principles “The law is the same for everyone”, to intervene on the procedure of the administration of justice are perplexing.
In their letter, the heads of the most important Italian newspapers, in fact, try to induce the Russian authorities to transgress their own legislation. We believe that it is clear to everyone that this approach is absurd and inappropriate. The demonstrative selectivity of the appeal also raises questions.
The letter expresses “deep concern” for an American colleague caught red-handed while carrying out espionage activities, but at the same time no attention is paid to other recent numerous blatant violations of the rights of journalists and the media. In particular, such “strong” appeals would not be found to the diplomatic missions of the countries that for many years have been carrying out an inhuman persecution of the journalist Julian Assange. Still, one would not see examples of intercession on behalf of more than a dozen media professionals detained for political reasons in Latvian prisons on far-fetched charges, including Marat Kasem, editor-in-chief of Sputnik Lithuania.
Perhaps it was sheer lack of attention that the Italian media failed to raise its voice in defense of RT DE and RT France, forced into bankruptcy by illegitimate broadcast bans, not to mention other crackdowns against Russian media in the West” free”. Finally, we have not noticed the due reaction of the Italian central media to the brutal murders of Russian journalists Daria Dugina, Oleg Klokov, Vladlen Tatarsky.
However vast the differences in assessment of the events taking place in the world between the heads of the main Italian media and their Russian colleagues, the conscious indifference, and in some cases even the attempts to find justifications for the perpetrators and organizers of these horrendous crimes would, by themselves, deprive any person, especially public opinion leaders, of the ethical right to make moralizing appeals.“