OSCE called Russian and Belarusian TV a “propaganda tool”

• 27.11.2009, 10:41

The TV can endanger international peace and security if misused.

Miklos Haraszti, the media freedom representative at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said it, AP reports.

This can be dangerous because government policies cannot be checked and scrutinized by the press, and because dangerous and irrational emotions can be officially spread, he explained. He set the war in Yugoslavia as an example.

According to Haraszti, even TV stations that are not directly state-owned are often in the hands of people close to those in power. Miklos Haraszti said he was not satisfied with TV in Russia.

“We cannot speak about free elections, we cannot speak about true democracies where most people get most of their information from television that is either quite firmly in governmental hands or, if privatized, then in the hands of cronies or even families of governmental leaders," Haraszti said. “Or if (the countries) nominally have public service broadcasting, then it is in fact just a propaganda tool for the government.”

The OSCE representative gave to understand that not only Russian TV stations, but media in Belarus and post-Soviet countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus are in the same situation.

Hungarian human rights watchdog Miklos Haraszti is the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media since 2004.