America is waging a war against freedom of speech

According to Isna, “Maria Zakharova”, the spokesperson of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Sunday that the suppression of the Russian media by the United States is a declaration of war against freedom of expression.

He described the new sanctions imposed by the United States against the Russian network “Rashatudi” and other news media as “unprecedented levels of repression”.

Zakharova said, “The United States has declared war on freedom of speech around the world and has resorted to open threats and blackmail against other countries to turn against their domestic media and establish monopoly control over the global information space.”

He clarified: “The punitive measures used by Washington to target the Russian media will not go unanswered.”

He added that the accusations of trying to influence the American elections are just a “witch hunt” and “espionage mania” that were introduced to manipulate public opinion and prevent American citizens from any information that is inconvenient for the government.

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced new sanctions on Rashatoudi on Friday, accusing the network of engaging in “global influence activities” and “functioning as a de facto arm of the Russian Ministry of Intelligence.”

Blinken told reporters: “Due to new information, much of it obtained from RT employees (Rasha Today), we now know that RT has cyber capabilities and is involved in covert intelligence and infiltration operations and “The provision of military equipment has participated.”

He continued: “As a result of these findings, today we are imposing sanctions against three entities and two individuals due to Russia’s covert global influence operations, including interference in Moldovan democracy and its upcoming elections.”

Referring to efforts to combat the spread of fake news, the US Secretary of State said: “Today, the United States, England, and Canada launched a joint diplomatic campaign to attract allies and partners from around the world in order to counter the threat posed by RT and other disinformation devices. They are launching a secret Russian infiltration.”

In early September, Washington imposed sanctions on Rashatoudi editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan and three other top employees of the network for allegedly trying to influence the 2024 US presidential election.

On the other hand, James Rubin, head of the US State Department’s Center for Global Engagement, told reporters on Friday that Rashatudi’s “wide scope and scope” is one of the reasons why many countries in the world do not support Ukraine.

According to Russian sources, the US State Department’s Center for Global Engagement sponsored advertising games aimed at children and forced the X social network to censor Russia-aligned content. Rubin admitted last year that he wanted to use the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center to shut down Russian media around the world.

Reacting to the new restrictions imposed on his network, Simonyan argued that Washington’s allegations of Rashatudi’s cooperation with Russian intelligence was a “classic case of projection”.

“The idea that you can’t get results without being a member of the intelligence service exposes the true nature of the American media,” he said.

After the imposition of new sanctions by the United States against Rashatoudi, Iran’s ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, said in an interview with this Russian network: “The United States will fail in its psychological wars against other countries. “Washington is always trying to discredit and discredit countries that are against its interests with lies.”

In his interview on Saturday, he added: “America is creating psychological wars. America basically has two methods, it tries to break the dignity with false accusations, and when this method does not work, it applies sanctions.

Jalali emphasized: “We Iranians have been familiar with these methods for 45 years and we know that the Americans consider their accusations to be false and will not succeed.”

The Iranian ambassador also addressed the recent US accusations against Iran regarding Tehran’s alleged interference in the US presidential election and said: “American accusations are all lies and should not be taken seriously.” It is clear that the media are trying to reveal the facts of different countries, including the actual facts and data of the elections, but they are trying to discredit these media with issues such as interference in the elections.”

He emphasized: “Everyone knows that this is nothing more than a trick and it will never succeed.”

In another part of his interview, Jalali added: “The duty of the media is to clarify the facts and events. Making the claim that a media is interfering in an issue is laughable and ridiculous. The duty of the media is to provide accurate information about the elections, the conditions of every country and every society.

end of message