Turkish regime authorities arrest Russian journalists

Moscow-Sana

The Turkish regime authorities have arrested a crew of the Russian NTV television channel in Istanbul.

According to a TASS correspondent today, the Turkish regime police officers arrested the journalists while they were doing their work in Istanbul, claiming they did not have a permit.

For its part, the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the arrest of Russian journalists in Istanbul yesterday and the interruption of communication with them, while the Russian Embassy in Turkey and the Russian Consulate General in Istanbul indicated that it was communicating with the regime authorities to clarify information about the incident.

In another context, the Director-General of the International News Agency, Russia, Sigodnia Dmitry Kiseliov, called on Latvia to stop persecuting journalists, describing its practices against them as an inappropriate application of European Union sanctions.

Kiseliov told Sputnik today: "This is an unlawful interpretation of the European Union sanctions against organizations .. There are personal sanctions and sanctions against Russian organizations and companies, and this is not the same, and EU sanctions apply to me personally as an individual."

Kiseliov pointed out that the Russia Segodnya media group, which also includes Sputnik News Agency, "is not subject to sanctions," adding: "It seems logical as Latvia wants to interpret personal sanctions as sanctions against the organization because there is some kind of malicious intent in this regard.

And Sputnik Latvia announced earlier that "the State Security Service in Latvia yesterday arrested six journalists after criminal charges were brought against them, and among them was the former editor of the Latvian Balt News magazine Andrei Yakovlev."

Sputnik Latvia added that "all of the detainees do not have a relationship with the International Information Agency Russia Sigodnia, but they write articles on the Latvian Sputnik and Palnews electronic pages."

Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the arrest and interrogation of the Latvian authorities of journalists working for the Russian news agency Sputnik and Balt News for the Russian-speaking news.