The dissident Russian television Dojd, since December 8, has lost its authorization to broadcast in Latvia, a country of the European Union.
The reasons justifying this ban reveal the vigilance but also the incomprehension of the Latvian authorities vis-à-vis the nearly 300 Russian journalists who have taken refuge in their territory. These journalists have their media whether it is Meduza, installed since 2014, Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper in Russian and Latvian, but also the Moscow editorial staff of Deutsche Welle and, since July, Dodj or TV Rain, the large independent Russian channel created in 2010 and described as a “foreign agent” by Moscow. They may be independent, dissident, having fled their country after the invasion of Ukraine and a law punishing 15 years in prison for any truth deemed untruthful, but these media are still Russian.
Mistrust
So when Dojd publishes a weather map of Russia, it says Crimea. When she receives testimonies from the wives of soldiers engaged on the front, she suggests sending equipment to the combatants. Worse perhaps, in the eyes of the Latvian regulator, it fails to translate its programs into the Latvian language.
Dojd therefore no longer has the right to broadcast in Latvia, it is the law, after three breaches in one year. The channel may have pleaded individual error and fired the author of the call for troop support, but it can only rely on YouTube to reach the Russian-speaking population, with no less than 14 million views in Russia.
The Kremlin quipped, saying “ some think that somewhere else is better than at home “. What is certain is that despite his denunciation of the crimes in Ukraine, Dojd also came up against an anti-Russian campaign in Latvia where the teaching of Tolstoy’s language has just been abandoned and monuments to the glory of the Red Army.
Latvia relies only on NATO
It is enough to meet Latvian journalists in Riga, as a delegation of the Albert Londres Prize did at the end of November, to realize that the position of Emmanuel Macron vis-à-vis of Russia. The theory dear to Kennedy according to which one should not “humiliate the adversary”, the idea that one must continue despite everything to maintain the link with Putin, the French vision according to which there can be no negotiations without guarantee for the security of Russia, all this seems incomprehensible.
Aurélie Royet-Gounin, the French ambassador in Riga, may well explain that this position of France allows the European Union to be an active player in the search for a solution, nothing helps. We feel that after two Soviet occupations, the Latvian media do not want to hear about a Franco-German path between Russia and NATO. A NATO which remains for them the only protective rampart.
► To read also: Latvia: Russian media in exile Dojd ordered to stop broadcasting its programs