Media caught in US-Russia ‘foreign agents’ fight

RUSSIA: President Vladimir Putin has approved a law that allows Russia to designate overseas media outlets as ‘‘foreign agents’’, leading to a far higher degree of state scrutiny and possible inspections of their operations.

Media affected by the law are subject to increased tax audits and must identify themselves on their websites and in broadcasts as ‘‘foreign agents’’ – a term associated by most Russians with spies.

Vyacheslav Volodin, the Russian parliamentary Speaker, said the measures were aimed at ‘‘biased’’ outlets that oppose Russia’s political system. The law was rushed through both houses of parliament in less than two weeks.

It is less than four months until Russia’s presidential election, in which Putin is expected to win a fourth term of office. He has accused the United States of plotting to meddle in the election. The US is investigating Russian meddling in its own presidential election last year.

The Russian justice ministry said last week that the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America would be labelled foreign agents. Both carry extensive Russian-language reports and broadcasts that are critical of Kremlin policies. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty angered Russian officials recently when it published footage of a man in central Moscow reading a poem calling on Putin to resign.

Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, said this month that the media law could also result in the expulsion of correspondents based in Moscow for newspapers such as The New

York Times and The Washington Post.

Russia says the media law is retaliation for Washington’s decision to force the Kremlin-funded RT international news channel to register under the US Foreign Agent Registration Act. The act was introduced in 1938 to counter Nazi propaganda and usually affects lawyers and lobby groups representing the interests of foreign states.

Putin had warned that Russia would retaliate if RT was forced to register as a foreign agent. –