MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Restrictions on the RT broadcaster or Sputnik news agency introduced by US companies or mulled by the US authorities violate the US public's right to choose and process information as they limit the citizens’ access to the alternative news sources, Marcello Ferrada de Noli, Chair of Swedish Professors & Doctors for Human Rights (SWEDHR), told Sputnik.
"What the elites are acting towards silencing Russian outlets… is something that principally is infringing the cultural liberties of the American public, their constitutional right to chose and processing journalistic information. In other words, the public cannot exercise that democratic right if the physical possibilities for those alternatives to exist are asphyxiated with such a repressive measures," de Noli said.
"But it is not enough. It is natural to conceive that similar restrictions applied to Russian outlets in the U.S. should be reciprocally administrated against the corresponding media actors or its representatives in Russia," the chair of SWDHR said.
Crackdown on RT in US
The crackdown on Sputnik and RT broadcaster comes in the wake of allegations of alleged Russia's interference in the US election, a claim repeatedly denied as groundless.
Most recently, the US Department of Justice has demanded the RT America's registration under FARA until Monday, November 13, with Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan calling the deadline "cannibalistic." No other foreign media outlet has been requested to register as a foreign agent in the US.
Just hours earlier Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the US House Intelligence Committee, said on Tuesday, that it was "a tough question" whether RT should be allowed to place advertisements.
READ MORE: Moscow: RT, Sputnik Ban by Twitter Reflects Its Dependence on US Establishment
Nevertheless, Twitter previously decided to block ads from all accounts owned by RT and Sputnik. While the Sputnik press service has stated the news agency had never used paid promotions on Twitter, RT has revealed how Twitter itself has been pushing it to spend big on its ads during the US election campaign, a proposal eventually turned down by the media outlet.
