BBC News executives vowed to continue reporting on Saturday night Russia And China, despite the growing concern that these two countries are becoming increasingly difficult to cover.
After Russia’s unexpected move last week Force correspondent Sarah Rainsford leaves Moscow permanently at the end of this monthA senior person in BBC News said that Russia’s decision not to renew her visa marked a new low in relations between the two countries. “Efforts are being made to keep communication open, but it is regrettable that Sarah said she was right that she did not see Russia change her mind,” he said.
Russian official media said that the decision not to renew the Rainsford visa was a retaliatory measure against Britain’s refusal to issue visas to some Russian journalists. However, the names and channels of those who were allegedly denied visas have not yet been made public.
In March, the predecessor of the BBC Beijing reporter John Sudworth leaves China to report on Taiwan After the pressure and threats of the Chinese authorities. Sudworth, who won the award for reporting on the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, also reported on the increasing pressure of working under the Chinese regime.
This weekend, the BBC news director stated that just five years ago, “we could hardly imagine that we would lose employees in Russia or China” and described it as “a nuclear option”, bringing them closer to established exclusion zones such as Iran and North Korea, where reporting is prohibited. “In the past, they were very reluctant to expel reporters. It was too bad. So it shows how bad things are. We haven’t let anyone really leave China, even though Sudworth did move his family there. Taiwan In the last part of his post. “
Russia’s decision to expel Rainsford shows that an institution “as large and powerful as the BBC” is now the target of censorship, once protected by the threat of serious reputational damage, and the country’s coverage is limited. The news director said that this development also revealed the difficulty for other smaller news organizations to find effective coverage.
Rainsford’s deportation marked the transfer of pressure from Russian-speaking media such as Meduza and Proekt to the foreign journalists’ corps in Moscow. It also issued a direct warning to the BBC that the company has greatly expanded Russian news in the past five years and has hired some of the country’s best local reporters.
This expansion produced harsh reports, which angered the Russian government.Last week, BBC News Russian and BBC News Arabic Published a survey This reveals the scale and scope of Russian mercenaries’ operations in Libya, using information from Samsung tablets found on the battlefield. Journalists expressed private concern that, as a refuge for journalists fleeing the local news media under state pressure, the BBC News Channel Russia — or they personally — might also become a target of the government.
In a speech on Saturday, Rainsford said: “I really like to tell the world the story of Russia, but this story is getting harder and harder to tell. However, I have to say that I did not expect this to happen. The situation. There are obvious signs in the Russian media: recently independent journalists in Russia have encountered very serious problems, but until now, we have been blocked in some way for foreign media.” The BBC still has about 100 employees in Working in Moscow, including BBC Monitoring service personnel, it believes that there is no direct threat to this situation.
The BBC executive said that the Russians had previously cited Britain’s failure to recognize as a journalist working for the national news agency TASS and sanctions against Russian diplomats as grounds for complaints.
“What they said is not untrue, but we certainly disagree with the comparison with Tass. The BBC does not belong to the British government, it belongs to the British people.”
