The Ukrainian regulator National Council has received a letter from its French counterpart Arcom informing it of its decision to send Eutelsat a notice to stop broadcasting the Russian channels Rossiya 1, Pervyi Kanal and NTV.
In the letter, Arcom notes that its decision is based on the fact that these three channels broadcast on Ukrainian territories annexed by Russia and that Ukraine, like France, is a signatory to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television.
Having analysed the output of the three channels, Arcom concluded that their broadcasts about the conflict in Ukraine contained repeated calls to hatred and violence, as well as numerous violations of the principle of truthfulness in the provision of information.
Arcom reviewed the broadcasts of three Russian TV channels broadcast in February, April, May, July and September 2022. During the investigation, aspects of the obligations not to incite hatred and violence, as well as the truthfulness of information, were studied. In the programmes on the TV channels Rossiya 1, Pervyi Kanal and NTV the Ukrainian population is repeatedly presented as supporters of the Nazi ideology of the Third Reich and, therefore, it poses an extreme danger. The Ukrainian language is also presented as hateful and dangerous. There was a widespread opinion that the use of violence against Ukrainians is legitimate and should be intensified.
According to the French media regulator, the expressions used in the programmes create a particularly disturbing and threatening image of the Ukrainian population as a whole, which can incite hatred and violence against it on a national basis. Arcom notes that these sequences, as a rule, legitimise the use of violence against the Ukrainian population and, therefore, may incite violence against the Ukrainian population on national grounds.
The media regulator determined that the broadcast of all relevant sequences is a violation of Article 15 of the law of September 30, 1986 and the first paragraph of Article 7 of the European Convention on Transfrontier Television of May 5, 1989. This violation is all the more serious as it occurs in the context of the Russian Federation’s military invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022.
Arcom also came to the conclusion that during the coverage of the events of the war in Ukraine, statements and assessments of events that did not correspond to reality were spread on Russian channels. “The repeated distribution of fake information, decontextualised, biased and not based on any reliable source of information, in the conditions of war, reflects a particularly serious violation of the obligation to ensure the truthfulness of information,” the French media regulator said in its decision.
Dissemination of such information is a violation of the third paragraph of Article 3-1 of the law of September 30, 1986 and the third paragraph of Article 7 of the Convention of May 5, 1989. Therefore, Arcom determined that the broadcast by Eutelsat of the television services Rossiya 1, Pervyi Kanal and NTV seriously violates Articles 3-1 and 15 of the law of September 30, 1986 and paragraphs 1 and 3 of Article 7 of the Convention of May 5, 1989 of the year, and for this company must be sent an official notice to stop broadcasting their services.
