WORLD NEWS: AUSTRIA SUMMONS RUSSIA ENVOY
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Austria protested what it described as Moscow’s “unprecedented” removal of an Austrian journalist’s media accreditation on Wednesday by calling Russia’s envoy to the nation.
Journalist Carola Schneider of ORF was ordered to leave the country and had her accreditation revoked on Wednesday, according to the Austrian broadcaster.
She is the second ORF journalist to lose their accreditation, meaning that there is now no journalist working for the public broadcaster in Russia.
“The withdrawal of the accreditation of Carola Schneider, office manager and last ORF employee in Moscow, is unprecedented,” said a foreign ministry statement.
“We condemn this unjustified and unacceptable step. This represents another arbitrary, baseless attack on the free press in Russia,” it added.
The ORF called the decision “an arbitrary act against independent reporting”. Schneider started her stint in Moscow in 2011.
The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement that the move against Schneider was a “forced retaliatory measure in connection with the continuing discrimination against representatives of Russian media in Austria.”
The Vienna bureau head of Russian news agency TASS, Arina Davidyan, on Monday got “a notice of non-renewal of her residence permit in Austria and an order to leave the country within two weeks”, the ministry said. That followed the withdrawal of her accreditation in April “under a made-up pretext”.
Two TASS journalists lost their accreditation in April due to a “negative safety assessment,” according to Austrian authorities.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the crackdown on independent reporting, a large number of reporters have left the country.
Protests against President Vladimir Putin’s regime or his invasion of Ukraine have resulted in the banning, harassment, and outlawing of domestic media.
In response to the EU’s ban on many Russian media outlets transmitting in Europe, Russia on Tuesday banned access to dozens of European media outlets, including websites for AFP and ORF.
AFP
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