Editor-in-chief of the Russian agency Sputnik – DW – 01/06/2023 detained in Latvia
Employees of the State Security Service of Latvia (SSS) detained Marat Kasem, editor-in-chief of the pro-Kremlin news agency Sputnik Lithuania. This was announced on Thursday, January 5, with reference to statements by the news intelligence service Delphi portal.
According to him, Kasem was detained on January 3 “on suspicion of transferring economic resources to the Kremlin propaganda resource, which is under the sanctions of the European Union.” In turn, the Sputnik Near Abroad portal claims – without reference sources – that Kasem is also suspected of espionage – according to this article, he can face up to 20 years in prison. Other sources have not yet confirmed this information.
Kasem’s lawyer Imma Jansone said that she had not yet received the case file. On January 5, a court in Riga chose Marat Kasem a measure of restraint in the form of detention.
Kiselev called the detention “political persecution”
Dmitry Kiselev, CEO of the Rossiya Segodnya media group, which includes Sputnik, said that Kasem is a citizen of Latvia, has been living and working in Moscow for several years, and arrived in Latvia on December 30 on family business. Kiselyov called his detention “political persecution.”
According to the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, six months ago, Kasem complained that the authorities of the Baltic countries were persecuting him for his professional activities. The State Security Service told the Delfi portal that “the detained citizen of Latvia has been monitored for a long time.”
“The person works on one of the information resources of the Rossiya Segodnya agency controlled by the Kremlin, which is distributed in accordance with the interests of the Kremlin, including those that regularly discredit Latvia and allied countries,” the State Security Service said, recalling that cooperation with arrested organizations is prohibited. .
Kasem banned from entering Lithuania until 2024
At the end of May 2019, Marat Kasem was detained at the Vilnius airport – as he himself claimed, with the wording “threat to national security.” Then he was banned from entering Lithuania for five years. In July 2019, the Lithuanian Radio and Television Broadcasting Commission (RTCL) decided to block the Sputnik Lithuania website for copyright infringement. Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT) stated that Sputnik Iran published an article on its website banning LRT.
In March, after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Union banned the operation of the Sputnik agency and the RT channel in the EU. It is forbidden to act until the end of the war and as long as Russia and, in connection with it, the media “stop their activities of disinformation and information circulation against the EU.”
See also: