Moscow slams UN report on press safety — Cross Talk India

Moscow’s ambassador to UNESCO, Rinat Alyautdinov, has condemned the body for ignoring Ukrainian attacks on Russian journalists and the persecution of Russian media abroad. Speaking at a session of UNESCO’s International Program for the Development of Communication (IPDC) on Friday, the diplomat accused the organization of a “selective approach” in relation to attacks on the press.

Alyautdinov was commenting on the latest Report on the Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity by UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay, which was officially presented at the session. The report, covering 2022 and 2023, mentioned the killings of only two Russian journalists since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, despite the fact that the actual death toll is much higher.

“Russia categorically rejects the director general’s report on the safety of journalists, which completely ignores the murders of Russian journalists in 2022-2023,” the diplomat stated, adding that the report was “based on unreliable data and is a source of disinformation.”

He noted that at least five Russian journalists had been “assassinated” by the Kiev regime during the reporting period, including Boris Maksudov, who worked for Russia 24 TV, RIA Novosti’s Rostislav Zhuravlev, Tavria TV’s Oleg Klokov, RuBaltic’s Aleksey Ilyashevich, as well as military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, and journalist Darya Dugina.

According to Alyautdinov, Russia had earlier submitted its own findings to UNESCO on the killings of Russian reporters, but the body has blatantly ignored them while preparing its report.

“The director general’s selective approach in responding to the murders of media representatives is a direct violation of [UN] policy to condemn the murders of journalists without any distinctions,” he said.

Alyautdinov urged IPDC members “to take decisive action to overcome… the division of UNESCO participants into ‘us’ and ‘them’.” He warned that this approach “runs counter to the ideals and principles” of the body, including the fight against discrimination and the protection of freedom of speech.

In his earlier remarks on Thursday, Alyautdinov also slammed UNESCO for failing to mention sanctions imposed on Russian media by the West in its report.

“Someone in the West may not like the way Russian broadcasters cover events, but we cannot recall any precedents when the media was outlawed on this basis alone – a real abuse of democracy and the foundations of information society,” he said.

Alyautdinov is not the first to criticize the report. After UNESCO published a draft version of the report on its website earlier this month, RT sent a letter to Azoulay, denouncing the document and listing a number of incidents that had been omitted, including assassination plots against RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also slammed the report, accusing UNESCO of “deliberate distortions and fact-twisting.”