WithThe validity period of Sarah Rainsford’s visa will end on August 31, after which she will have to leave Russia. Zakharova said that Rainsford will be given a visa if London takes a similar step against a Russian correspondent
Sarah Rainsford
British BBC journalist Sarah Rainsford will receive a Russian visa as soon as London issues a visa to a Russian correspondent. The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Maria Zakharova, wrote about this in Telegram.
On August 13, it became known that Rainsford’s visa was not extended and she will have to leave Russia after the visa expires (August 31).
According to Zakharova, Rainsford informed journalists that she was threatened with a permanent ban on entry to Russia. “First of all, she was not told this. A journalist, even a British one, who has lived in a Russian-speaking environment, according to his estimates, a third of his life, should understand the difference between “never returning” and “indefinitely revoking a journalist’s visa and accreditation”. But we are used to such manipulations of information, ” the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted.
According to Zakharova, Rainsford will be given a visa only if London takes a similar step against a Russian correspondent, whose name she did not specify. “This is exactly what we proposed, calling on London to unblock the visa impasse for journalists,” she added.
As Zakharova noted, this “saga” has been dragging on since the summer of 2019, when a journalist from a Russian news agency and his family members had to leave the UK. He did not wait for the extension of his visas and any explanation of the reasons for this attitude, she added. Zakharova did not specify the name of the agency, as well as the name of the journalist.
“Attempts by the Russian media to send other correspondents to replace them were also unsuccessful: the British side refused to issue visas to the journalist, and again without any motivation,” the representative of the Foreign Ministry said.
Ezakharova said that the Russian side has repeatedly said at various levels that such an approach from London is unacceptable and that Moscow will not put up with this state of affairs. “They called for a review of the discriminatory approach to the Russian news agency in particular and to the domestic media in general. We pointed out that otherwise we would be forced to respond similarly, ” she wrote.
Instead of listening to the urgent recommendations, London went to an even greater aggravation of relations, adopting a series of unjustified personal sanctions against the citizens of our country, Zakharova believes. She stressed that the situation with Rainsford is a retaliatory measure on the part of Russia and it has nothing to do with any infringement of freedom of speech.
“The decision taken by the English correspondent is similar to the actions of London described above in relation to its Russian colleagues in the shop. Thus, for his upcoming departure, S. Rainsford should first and last thank exclusively his compatriots. <..."We once again suggest that London reconsider the policy of crowding out freedom of speech with propaganda, stop the practice of exerting pressure on the media and discriminating against journalists," Zakharova concluded.
Rainsford first came to Russia in 2000 as a producer. In 2002, she, not yet being a correspondent, transmitted to the editorial office information from the scene of the terrorist attack in the theater on Dubrovka. She did reports during the seizure of a school in Beslan in 2004. After working in Russia, Rainsford was a BBC correspondent in Spain, Turkey and Cuba.
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Also earlier this week, she attended the “Big Conversation” of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko. The journalist mentioned that Britain announced new economic sanctions against Belarus, demanding new fair elections and the release of political prisoners. She asked Lukashenka what Minsk’s reaction to the new measures would be, to which he replied: “Yes, you will choke on these sanctions in the UK. We haven’t known this Great Britain for a thousand years and we don’t want to know. You are American henchmen.”
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