EU urges to restore Crimean Tatar ATR channel broadcasting
The European Union considers the shutdown of the Crimean Tatar media a flagrant violation of the right to freedom of expression and calls for the restoration of ATR television programs broadcast.
This is said in a statement of EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy press secretary, released today, Censor.NET reports citing Liga.
"The Crimean people deserve easy access to media pluralism," the document says. In this case, the statement calls for respect for fundamental rights and freedoms of people of Crimea.
The document reminds that according to reports from the peninsula, not only ATR, but other Crimean Tatar media were forced to stop their activities, which is a "flagrant violation of the right to freedom of expression", and is part of a broader way of harassment and intimidation of the Crimean Tatars.
On April 1, the only Crimean Tatar TV channel ATR stopped broadcasting in Russian annexed Crimea. It broadcasted programs in Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages. ATR and several other Crimean Tatar media have not been re-registered in Roskomnadzor (Russian Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications) despite numerous attempts to submit the necessary documents.
