"I welcome this initiative and would like to see even more human rights organisations take a strong stand in favour of freedom of information and challenge the EU’s ban on RT and Sputnik", says Taylor Hudak, journalist and editor at AcTVism Munich. "The public is not free and informed if entities like the EU ban news organisations it does not like simply because those organisations provide a different perspective".
In early March, the European Union suspended the broadcasting of several Russian media outlets as part of the sanctions over Russia's special operation in Ukraine, which was launched on 24 February. Sputnik, RT, and their subsidiaries came under the ban. Simultaneously, Meta*, Twitter, and some other Big Tech giants suspended Sputnik and RT's accounts and content on their platforms across the EU.
A Dutch coalition of press- and Internet freedom advocates, which includes the Dutch Association of Journalists (NVJ) and civil rights organisation Bits of Freedom,
signalled this week that it would challenge the EU's decision. "This was a political decision, without judicial review", argues Rejo Zenger of Bits of Freedom. "The decision to make information inaccessible should not rest with our heads of government but with independent judges".
According to Vermaut, Europe must set an example and adhere to the fundamental rights outlined in the Treaty of Lisbon of 2007, which expresses the three fundamental principles of democratic equality, representative democracy, and participatory democracy.
"There is no way that the EU will begin to prohibit everything that does not comply with their agenda", the activist emphasises, insisting that "the international federation union of journalists should also join this cause, as it is crucial that we all fight for our fundamental basic rights".
Freedom of information is becoming something of the past, according to Taylor Hudak. She bemoans the fact that Western governments within Europe are "taking draconian policies to limit the public’s access to information".
What's worse, Western news networks are at the same time spreading uncorroborated information, sheer disinformation, and fake news, according to the AcTVism Munich editor.
"For example, the attempts to depict Ukrainian President [Volodymyr] Zelensky as a hero and the Azov Battalion as freedom fighters, when they have a deep-rooted affiliation with Nazism, is just the latest example of fake news coming from Western media", Hudak highlights.
This happens because the EU has become nothing short of the "political branch of NATO," according to her. As a result, a majority of EU member states’ governments have taken up the foreign policy interests of Washington and not their own people by placing sanctions on Russia and censoring the media, she says.
Hudak believes that if a majority of Americans and EU citizens knew the truth about Ukraine and how the Ukrainian government has been shelling the region of Donbass for the past eight years, "they would certainly not support military aid to Ukraine nor would they support sanctions on Russia".
*Meta is banned in Russia over extremist activities.