"Russian media have paid the price for taking Syria's side and protecting it from the whole world," the speaker of the People's Council of Syria, Hadiya Khalaf Abbas said as quoted in the statement.
On November 23, 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.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, commenting on the adoption of the European Parliament’s resolution on Russian media, congratulated RT and Sputnik journalists on effective work and stressed that this resolution indicated apparent degradation of the concept of democracy in the Western society. Putin also expressed hope that common sense would prevail and that there would be no actual restrictions against the Russian media.
