The National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine expresses its viewpoint regarding the statement of Freedom House: in the issues of the information landscape safety Ukraine is guided by the current legislation and international provisions in force

In response to the statement of Mr. Robert Herman, the Vice President for international programs of Freedom House, published on the official web-page of this organization, the Ukrainian Regulatory Authority in the area of electronic media informs that the TV Dozhd, which is under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation, has been excluded from the List of Programs Content of Which Meets the Requirements of the European Convention on Transfrontier Television and the Legislation of Ukraine, merely on the legal basis.

It is already the third year that the State of Ukraine has been countering the hybrid warfare, one of the components of which is information intervention. Dissemination of Kremlin-related propaganda is so systemic and strong that its hazards in the recent years have been felt even by European countries. It is known that the issue related to combatting aggressive disinformation, which is disseminated based on the orders of the Russian authorities, have been repeatedly raised at European forums of the highest levels. In 2015 by the decision of the European Union there was established the East StratCom Task Force operating within the European External Action Service in order to debunk manipulating influences.

Upon such conditions Ukraine has approved a number of legislative acts directly aimed at safeguarding information landscape and national security of the state as a whole. By the Decree of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine No. 129-VII of 27 January 2015 the Russian Federation was recognized to be an aggressor state, and therefore the national media legislation, which must meet the national interests, has undergone significant changes. Thus, at the moment the following provision is in force: “An economic entity that is under the jurisdiction of Ukraine, aims to retransmit programs and has obtained the relevant permit given by a copyrighter (producer), which is not under the jurisdiction of a state that is a EU Member-State or of a state that has ratified the Convention on Transfrontier Television, has the right to retransmit programs only subject to their content compliance with the requirements of the legislation of Ukraine, of the European Convention on Transfrontier Television and subject to their inclusion into the list of programs that are retransmitted based on the decision of the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine.”

The TV Dozhd had been included into this list but the services of the National Council, which carry out regular monitoring of both international and national broadcasters, observed noncompliance of the program content of the TV channel with the Ukrainian legislation. The dissemination of commercial advertising was observed, this activity comprises violation of the requirements of paragraph 9 of Article 13 of the Law of Ukraine “On Advertising” (“Transmission (retransmission) of advertising which is contained in programs of foreign TV and radio organizations that are transmitted (retransmitted) in the territory of Ukraine, in case if foreign TV and radio organizations are not under the jurisdiction of EU Member-State or of states that have ratified the European Convention on Transfrontier Television, is forbidden”). As it is known, the Russian Federation has not ratified the Convention, therefore, the channels that operate under its jurisdiction are covered with this legal provision.

Moreover, in programs of TV Dozhd there has repeatedly been observed dissemination of information that does not comply with the requirements of paragraph 2 of Article 6 of the Law of Ukraine “On Television and Radio Broadcasting” (“It is forbidden to use TV and radio organizations to make calls for war incitement, for aggressive actions or of their propaganda”) and paragraph 1 of Article 28 of the Law of Ukraine “On Information” (“Information cannot be used to make calls for elimination of the constitutional order, violation of territorial integrity of Ukraine, propaganda of war, violence, cruelty, ethnic, racial, religious hatred incitements, terroristic acts commitment, encroachment on the human rights and freedoms”).

The Regulatory Authority has twice applied to the management representatives of the Company with the letters informing about the need to remedy the violations related to commercial advertising transmission (19 February and 10 May 2016). The first reply of the Company said that it was considering this problem and the second reply on 2 August 2016 stated that the problem had been already tackled. They told that for Ukraine there had been created a separate channel via IP-protocol without advertising and that the major part of providers will transmit the broadcaster without advertising. However, the following monitoring of programs of this foreign broadcaster confirmed that the violations were still ongoing. After all, not all programme service providers obtained programmes of the channel from the Internet, the majority of providers obtained them via satellite, which is to say that the viewer watched commercial advertising.

In program items of the TV Dozhd there has been repeatedly transmitted information which indicates non-recognition of the state borders and encroachment on territorial integrity of Ukraine, in particular, in broadcasts and on the website of the broadcaster there had been demonstrated the map where the Crimea was indicated as a part of the Russian Federation. Moreover, particular expressions of the journalists of the channel contained information concerning the existence of the state border between the Crimea and Ukraine.

The comments of the Director General of the TV Dozhd Mrs. Nataliia Syndieieva stated, ‘According to Article 65 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation the Republic of Crimea is the entity of the Russian Federation’. The law-obedience of the head of the channel is clear and it has nothing to do with the provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine. Therefore, this decision of the Ukrainian Regulator is valid both from legal and moral standpoints.

The legislative branch of the authority of Ukraine and the Regulator in the broadcasting area strive to approximate the national media legislation to the European legislation. The elaboration of the new Law on audiovisual services is in the process. In such rather difficult for our country time regulation of the media market is exercised merely based on the current legislative provisions and in compliance with the international provisions in force. Having approved the decision on the TV Dozhd, the National Council had been guided, among others, by Article 28 of the European Convention on Transfrontier Television which, in particular, defines that nothing in this Convention shall prevent the Parties from applying stricter or more detailed rules than those provided for in this Convention.

We would like to emphasize that in Ukraine viewers can have access to programs of the TV Dozhd via the Internet and satellite communication.

In the meanwhile, we would like to draw the attention of Mr. Robert Herman to the fact that this channel is excluded from the cable networks of the Russian Federation. In our opinion, it would be of particular importance and positivity to provide support of international organizations for the channel to ensure its free dissemination in its own country and to ensure the rights of Russian viewers for freedom of speech and their related possibility to obtain alternative viewpoints as regard public events.