Flags on the Bundestag building in Berlin, GermanySt. Petersburg, 2 Feb. The attempts of the German authorities to ban the Telegram messenger and the RT TV channel in the country are probably dictated by the desire to establish censorship against anti-government rhetoric on social networks and the media, two deputies of the German Bundestag told RIA Novosti. At the end of January, the German Ministry of Justice reported on two investigations into Telegram. Interior Minister Nancy Fraser allowed the blocking of the messenger in Germany as a last resort if a pan-European solution is not found to comply with the requirements of local legislation. On February 1, the Commission for Registration and Supervision of Media Regulators of Germany officially banned the broadcasting of the RT DE TV channel in Germany, stating that the broadcast organizers did not have the necessary permission, RT, in turn, reported that RT DE Productions would appeal the decision of the German regulator in court.
Simonyan said that RT DE has the rights to broadcast in Germany and other countries «The Telegram social network is one of the few that has not yet been subjected to state censorship in Germany. That is why government agencies are trying to increase pressure on it, inclining to «cooperation.» It appears that the state is moving in the direction of restricting free speech on the Internet. It's no secret that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube are now working together to remove comments that are critical of the ruling establishment,» said Yevgeny Schmidt, an MP from the right-wing Alternative for Germany party ( AfD).Leftist Die Linke MP Alexander Neu spoke about the problems of the German-language channel RT, which was taken off the air in Germany in December due to the lack of a valid satellite license. «I cannot justify these restrictive measures against RT. The German constitution has freedom of the press , speech and media are fundamental rights No one is forced to watch RT, but if a person wants, he has the right to do so, to get a different perspective on political or social reality. The so-called liberal world becomes clearly less liberal if censorship continues in it,” Noy said. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier, the Russian Federation has reason to believe that the German authorities are directly related to the oppression of RT DE in Germany. German Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock was asked to comment on the situation around RT DE at a conference following the talks in Moscow.The minister began to assert that RT DE journalists «always have access to journalistic activities», and called the assumption that the German authorities were involved in the harassment of journalists of the TV channel untrue On Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on its website that Lavrov, during a telephone conversation with Burbock, urged the German government to stop discriminating against RT DE. Germany launched two investigations against Telegram
