The Witch Hunt Against Journalists Who Disagree With the Main Stream Media Narrative Continues in Australia
Meanwhile in Australia the witch hunt against journalists who disagree with the Main Stream Media narrative continues.
The establishment and MSM have unleashed onto a local community radio station.
This is unacceptable and un-Australian.
We are witnessing an unprecedented campaign of political racism against pro-Russian journalists in Australia.
What’s next? Internment of Russians in Australia?
Melbourne-based Russian radio show probed over Kremlin propaganda
The Australian media regulator is investigating a Melbourne-based Russian community radio program after receiving complaints it was broadcasting Kremlin propaganda on the Ukrainian war, pushing President Vladimir Putin’s false narrative that Russia is seeking to “demilitarise and de-Nazify” Ukraine.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority said it was concerned about the complaints it had received. Some called for the program to be immediately shut down, but the station’s manager said it would take six weeks to investigate, due to the fact the station was run by volunteers and many things needed translating.
Residents clean up the damage from a missile attack in Kramatorsk.
The war in Ukraine is in its fourth week and Moscow has been amping up its information war against the West to justify its actions. Many major Western news outlets have been forced out of the country and the Kremlin has blocked Russians from accessing numerous social media platforms.
The Russian program on Melbourne ethnic community radio station 3ZZZ regularly espoused Putin’s disinformation as recently as last week. The listeners are often non-English-speaking migrants and are unlikely to get their information elsewhere.
“Vladimir Zhirinovksy’s prophecy [about Donbas] has come true,” Mr Bydanov said in Russian.
“Whatever you think about him – I personally respect him and forgive him for his eccentricity – he is a professor who understands geopolitics better than all the experts in the west including our Morrison here and all the rest. He prophesied, he’s been in hospital with COVID for a few weeks, but he forecast when he was still in Parliament in a debate in September or October that it would all start in February of 2022.”
Mr Bydanov then played a speech Mr Zhirinovsky gave to the Duma, the Russian Parliament, where he said while he wanted peace, if the Ukrainians did not comply with Moscow’s demands, Russia needed to show the world it was a great power.
He also broadcast Mr Putin’s speech to the nation on February 24 in which he recognised the independence of the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and said the war was justified to demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine. In the broadcast, Mr Bydanov falsely claimed the Russian army was not firing at Ukrainian towns.
On March 4, Mr Bydanov revealed his former boss was Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of Russia and a member of Mr Putin’s inner circle, who has been sanctioned by Britaiin and the US under both countries’ Magnitsky laws.
On the March 4 program, Mr Bydanov also spoke to Russia’s Ambassador to Australia, Alexey Pavlovsky, who said he wanted to explain Russia’s point of view but that it was hard because of the pressure he was under in Australia and the “one-sided press”. He added he was concentrating on social media to communicate Moscow’s position, and that he approved of Mr Bastrykin’s work.
“My former boss Alexander Ivanovich Bastrykin, he’s now the head of the investigative committee, says there are more than 450 criminal cases open for crimes in Donbas,” Mr Bydanov said.
A new announcer hosted the most recent broadcast on March 18 and made no political comment about the war, but she played an excerpt from the Russian news which talked about atrocities committed by Ukrainians against Russian speakers in Donbas.
3ZZZ manager Jon King said the station was investigating the program after receiving multiple complaints, but the probe would take up to six weeks.
“We’re a volunteer-run organisation and we have to allow volunteers time to respond to things,” Mr King said.
An Australian Communications and Media Authority spokeswoman said it had received two complaints about the program.
“The ACMA is concerned about these complaints. It is currently considering the matter and has been in contact with the broadcaster regarding the program and their response,” the spokeswoman said.
“Community radio broadcasters operate under a co-regulatory scheme. Co-regulation gives broadcasters an opportunity to respond to the complainant in the first instance.”
“The comments were made a month ago and we’ve got this licensee basically playing for time in the interest of promoting Russian propaganda,” Dr Muller said.
“Why would that not breach a serious constitute of licensing conditions … This is stirring up enmities and hates from [the diaspora’s] old countries and that is deeply against the public interest.”
He said while propaganda had always been an integral part of warfare, Russia was the aggressor in the war and its disinformation should not be allowed to proliferate, particularly in Australia.
SBS and Foxtel have suspended the broadcast of Kremlin-controlled state media Russia Today and NTV, while federal Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has asked Facebook, Twitter, Google and other digital platforms to block Russian state media to curb “disinformation in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine”.
Resources:
https://t.me/AussieCossack/2118
https://www.smh.com.au/national/melbourne-based-russian-radio-show-probed-over-kremlin-propaganda-20220322-p5a6rg.html
