Volodin said that there should be no foreign agents among journalists, and urged to be equal to deputies

The law on foreign agents is designed to protect Russia from external interference, while there should be no foreign agents among journalists. This, according to TASS, was stated by the speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin.

Speaking about the situation with foreign media agents, Volodin noted: “There are many questions here for the community itself, you take it, determine for yourself how we will develop the country without these foreign handouts.”

At the same time, he pointed out, the deputies “renounced the shares of foreign companies, refused deposits in foreign banks and many other things.”

“Journalists should do the same,” the speaker of the State Duma emphasized, urging media workers “to fight not for handouts,” but for the quality of information.

Recall that the list of media-foreign agents, maintained by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, currently includes 111 individuals and legal entities, including the founder of Rosbalt news agency, JSC RS-Balt.

The legal entity was included in the list on October 15, 2021. This decision of the Ministry of Justice caused a great public outcry – the agency received support from the professional community, political and public figures. In public speeches, they stated the need to change the legislation on foreign agents or completely abolish it.

As a striking example of the incorrect, in their opinion, the operation of existing laws, the situation with the news agency “Rosbalt” was cited.

On December 17, 2021, the judge of the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow, Nelly Rubtsova, did not satisfy the claim of RS-Balt JSC against the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation on entering foreign media agents into the register.

During the court session, the representative of RS-Balt, Dmitry Firsov, emphasized that the objections of the Ministry of Justice to the lawsuit contained false information, which, as follows from the document, served as the basis for including the founder of Rosbalt news agency in the register of media outlets acting as foreign agents. Also, according to Firsov, there is no evidence in the case file of the receipt of foreign funding and the dissemination of media reports by foreign agents.

Nikolai Ulyanov, editor-in-chief of the news agency Rosbalt, assured that the decision of the Zamoskvoretsky court would be appealed.

Read more about the situation around Rosbalt here.

Earlier, HRC member Eva Merkacheva clarified in what cases a journalist can be recognized as a foreign agent, and came to the conclusion: “In general, things are so-so. All journalists are potential IAs.”

Meanwhile, a petition was published on the Web, according to which the law on “foreign agents”, adopted in Russia, should be supplemented with a provision and criteria on recognizing civil servants as foreign agents.

According to the author of the petition, civil servants who have “citizenship of another state or residence permit of another state” should be recognized as such. In addition, an official should be “marked” with the status of a foreign agent if “his family and close relatives have received citizenship or a residence permit of another state”, if he “has real estate in another state”, and if “he or his family has personal bank accounts another state.”

Prior to that, in October 2021, investigative journalists presented the Pandora Dossier, a package of documents that demonstrate the close connection between clandestine offshore transactions and global financial policy. In November, a demand was sent to the presidential administration to check the Russian defendants in the Pandora archive. We are talking, among other things, about State Duma deputies Alexei Chepa, Grigory Anikeev, Vladislav Reznik and Andrey Skoch, as well as about Senator Oleg Tkach and auditor of the Accounts Chamber Sergei Mamedov, Zaks.Ru wrote.