MID sez Moscow has “Serious Concerns” Over RT Reporter’s Arrest Whilst Covering Anti-Trump Rally

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On Friday, MID RF official spokesman M V Zakharova said that Moscow has serious concerns over the arrest of RT America’s Alexander Rubinstein at an anti-Trump protest. At a press briefing, she stated:

As for the situation with the RT correspondent, it causes serious concern. I’m referring to RT America’s correspondent Alexander Rubinstein. Washington police detained him on Friday 20 January when he was covering a protest against US President Donald Trump on the day of his inauguration. The correspondent was performing his professional duty, he had a press card with him, and nonetheless, Alexander Rubinstein was in police custody for almost 24 hours. The preliminary hearing in his case is due on 16 February.

After police arrested Rubinstein together with other journalists and protesters, they charged him with inciting a riot. Along with other reporters, they released him the following day. However, the charges against Rubinstein and several other reporters remain in force, which means they could face up to 10 years imprisonment or a 25,000 USD (1.497 million Roubles. 172,028 Renminbi. 1.703 million INR. 32,882 CAD. 33,122 AUD. 23,368 Euros. 19,922 UK Pounds) fine if found guilty. On Friday, Washington police dropped similar charges against Vocativ journalist Evan Engel after they considered additional evidence. William Miller, a spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office for Washington DC, said in a statement:

After consultation with the counsel for Mr Engel, who’s a journalist with Vocativ, as well as a review of evidence presented to us by law enforcement, we concluded that we wouldn’t proceed with the charge against this individual. The prosecution is in process of reviewing evidence in other cases related to the arrests in cooperation with the Metropolitan Police Department.

Meanwhile, Engel expressed gratitude to his legal advisers and all those who voiced support for him:

Today, my thoughts are with any other journalists who are facing charges for doing their jobs, as well as with journalists imprisoned around the world.

Police arrested at least six journalists reporting from the anti-Trump rally and charged them with felonies. Apart from Rubinstein and Engel, police detained and later released Jack Keller, a producer for the web documentary series Story of America, Shay Horse, independent photojournalist and live-streamer Matt Hopard, and freelance reporter Aaron Cantu on the same charges. Police treatment of these media workers drew sharp criticism from the media industry and civil right organisations. The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) called the arrests “a violation of journalistic freedom”, whilst Reporters Without Borders (RSF) demanded Washington authorities drop felony charges and called on the new US administration to “stop undermining the First Amendment and start defending it”. The American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] of DC also condemned the way the police handled the situation during the mass protest. On Friday, its executive director, Monica Hopkins-Maxwell, said:

[The ACLU] is concerned that law enforcement may have violated demonstrator’s rights, including indiscriminately corralling and detaining individuals, including journalists and legal observers, who weren’t involved in any criminal activity.

”Outrage!” 6 Journalists Including RT Reporter Face “Inappropriate” Rioting Charges

28 January 2017

RT

https://www.rt.com/news/375367-rubinstein-arrest-protest-zakharova/

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20 September 2015. A Modest Proposal from Peter Lavelle of RT

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Here’s the suggestion:

I’m working on the following idea while the weather in this part of the world is nice… why not record a CrossTalk episode in Crimea? This would really piss off the US State Department, the American embassy in Moscow, and Washington’s bitch in the Ukraine Poroshenko. What do you think?

Peter Lavelle

I say…

Go for it and make damn sure that Yelena Khanga is part of the festivities. Oh, yes, Peter… have you learnt to grill shashliki the Russian way? You could do the show on the beach whilst grilling up a feast… Graham Phillips could keep the fire going as the show went on. Do have plenty of cold pivo and hot crawdads on hand…

BMD

RT Stepped in a Juicy Cowpat… Righties DON’T Give More to Charity… They Give Tons o’ Cash to Greasy Preachers and Tin Tabernacles… Get it Right

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Here’s a crank article from RT… let’s keep it simple. The right doesn’t give more to charity… it gives more to religious cranks, which is another thing altogether. In short, this entire article is rubbish, as it has a flawed and cracked foundation… it equates charity with religious giving, which just isn’t so. Shame on you, RT… who put you up to writing this POS post? Righties do NOT help others… they put their money into their tin tabernacles… where the “preachers” live high off the proceeds. In short, it’s “anti-charity” of the foulest description. For instance, some sources listed Willy Romney’s forced “tithes” to the Moron Church as “charity”. That isn’t charitable giving… that’s a tax levied by a religious organisation… do note that the Church doesn’t do that… but “Evangelicals” do! That is, religious giving isn’t charitable in the least, and we shouldn’t treat it as such.

This time, RT struck out… and struck out badly.

BMD

Putin Warns West’s Syria Policy Could Backfire

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President Vladimir Putin warned the Western powers that their “dangerous” stance on the Syria crisis could come back to haunt them. In a wide-ranging interview with the RT international news channel, Putin said, “Today, some want to use militants from al-Qaeda or some other equally-radical groups to accomplish their goals in Syria. This policy is very short-sighted and is fraught with dire consequences”.

Putin compared alleged Western funding of radical Islamist militants to help topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with American support for Afghan rebels after the USSR’s 1979 invasion of its Central Asia neighbour, saying, “When someone aspires to attain an end they see as optimal, any means will do. As a rule, they’ll try and do that by hook or by crook… and hardly ever think of the consequences. That was the case during the war in Afghanistan. At that time, our present partners supported a rebel movement there and basically gave rise to al- Qaeda, which later backfired on the USA itself”.

Putin also hit out at Western criticism of the Kremlin’s refusal to back proposed UN sanctions against the Assad régime over the continuing bloodshed in Syria and dismissed suggestions that Moscow would alter its position, saying, “How come Russia’s the only one who’s expected to revise its stance? Don’t you think our counterparts in negotiations ought to revise theirs as well? Because if we look back at the events in the past few years, we’ll see that quite a few of our counterparts’ initiatives haven’t played out the way they were intended to. Look at what’s going on in Arab countries. There have been notable developments in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, etc. Would you say that order and prosperity have been totally ensured for these nations? Besides, what’s going on in Iraq? In Libya, there are armed clashes still raging among the country’s various tribes”.

Putin suggested the key to ending the conflict in Syria was to halt weapons deliveries to Damascus, saying, “I believe that the first thing to do is to stop shipping arms into the warzone, which is still going on. We should stop trying to impose unacceptable solutions on either side, because it’s a dead-end. That’s what we should do. It’s that simple”. The Kremlin said its arms shipments to Syria don’t violate international law and don’t include equipment that could be used against “peaceful protesters”.

On 19 July, Russia and China vetoed a Western-backed UN resolution on Syria over fears that it would lead to foreign military intervention in the country, a move that American UN Ambassador Susan Rice called “paranoid if not disingenuous”. The resolution has its basis in Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which provides for the use of force to put an end to conflict. Russia said that it has no special interest in seeing Assad remain in power, but that the “Syrian people” should decide his fate. Earlier this year, Putin vowed not to allow a repeat of the “Libya scenario”, which saw the ouster and murder of long-time Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi after a NATO military campaign last year.

6 September 2012

RIA-Novosti

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20120906/175798858.html