Russian MPs support law targeting foreign media

MOSCOW: Russian members of parliament yesterday backed new legislation allowing foreign media outlets to be listed as “foreign agents” in a reciprocal response to United States pressure on Kremlin-backed TV channel RT.

MPs backed amendments that would allow international media that receive financing from abroad to be classified as “foreign agents”, RIA Novosti news agency reported, a measure previously used only against nongovernmental organisations.

Outlets such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, which receive funding from the US Congress, would be forced to register as foreign agents.

MPs have given contradictory statements on whether the law could apply to CNN.

A total of 409 lawmakers out of 450 voted to back the amendments, while no one voted against or abstained, TASS state news agency reported.

The lower house of Parliament’s deputy speaker Pyotr Tolstoy said the reciprocal measures were “forced” by the actions of the US.

“This decision that we are taking is a forced one, none of us wanted to take such a decision, and it will not influence freedom of speech in our country at all,” Tolstoy said, quoted by RIA Novosti.

In Washington, a report to Congress released yesterday accused Chinese state media entities of involvement in spying and propaganda, and said their staff in the US should be required to register as foreign agents.

The annual report of the US China Economic and Security Review Commission said while China had tightened restrictions on domestic and foreign media, Chinese state media had rapidly expanded overseas.

The commission said China’s state media expansion was part of a broader effort to exert greater control over how China was depicted globally, as well as to gather information.

It quoted testimony to the commission by rights organisation Freedom House as saying it was a “loophole” that individuals working for Xinhua and China’s People’s Daily newspaper were not covered by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara).

Fara, first passed in 1938 in the lead up to World War 2 to combat German propaganda efforts, requires foreign governments, political parties and lobbyists they hire in the US to register with the Department of Justice.

The China Daily, a newspaper owned by China’s government and ruling Communist Party, is already registered under Fara, but only its top executives are required to individually disclose working for the publication.

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers is working to improve Fara.

The reform could provide an opportunity for Congress to act on the commission recommendations. Agencies