On October 1, PACE adopted the Propaganda and Freedom of Information in Europe resolution aimed at imposing sanctions against the Kremlin media and recognizing the Russian Orthodox Church as an element of Russian propaganda.
A total of 117 participants of the session voted for the relevant document.
Yevhenia Kravchuk, deputy head of the Humanitarian and Information Policy Committee, member of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE, announced this on Facebook.
The resolution stated that member states of the Council of Europe must protect themselves from all forms of propaganda, including war propaganda, incitement to genocide and other international crimes, hatred, terrorism and discrimination. In addition, they should be able to counteract and neutralize propaganda that contradicts the basic values of the European Convention on Human Rights, the deputy noted.
Thus, according to Kravchuk, today PACE called to:
introduce targeted sanctions against Russian media outlets such as RT and its affiliates, as their activities violate journalistic ethics and should be considered a threat to the national security of member states;
introduce targeted sanctions against propagandists such as Margarita Simonyan, Olga Skabeeva, Vladimir Solovyov and others, if this has not already been done;
recognize that the Russian Orthodox Church is used by the Kremlin regime as a tool of Russian influence and propaganda.
Russia’s criminal propaganda is perceived as the biggest threat to freedom of information in Europe and beyond. The adopted resolution is an important step towards its eradication, she concluded.
