Ukraine bans the broadcast of Dozhd TV channel

The National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting has removed Dozhd TV channel from the list of foreign broadcasts, the content of which meets the requirements of the European Convention on Transfrontier Television and Ukrainian legislation.

According to the “Detector Media” such decision was adopted by the National Council on Thursday.

As well as temporarily for three months suspended the broadcast of the Teleclub TV channel, which has jurisdiction in Germany, in Ukraine.

Dozhd TV channel was banned for broadcast of Russian advertisements, which are banned by the Ukrainian legislation (the law prohibits the broadcast of advertisements on the Russian TV channels, which are relayed in Ukraine), as well as the broadcast of information which encroaches the territorial integrity of Ukraine (Dozhd TV channel shows the Crimea as the territory of the Russian Federation).

The decision will be enacted one month after the publication.

Serhiy Kostynskiy, a member of the National Council, stated that regulator had monitored the broadcast of Dozhd for a year and gave TV channel two months to comply with Ukrainian legislation.

Natalya Sindeyeva, the Director of the Dozhd TV channel, informed the National Council that Dozhd created a separate internet version of channel, which does not contain advertisement, for Ukraine. However, the National Council has not received the documents from the Dozhd to include the Ukrainian version of the channel in the list of foreign channels and channel has not solved the issue with Ukrainian providers and their broadcast of separate version. Providers are still broadcasting the version of Dozhd with advertisements.

According to Kostynskiy, Dozhd has a system policy regarding the Crimea. They consider the Crimea to be a territory of the Russian Federation. Journalists of Dozhd go to Crimea in violation of Ukrainian legislation. They call the border of Kherson region and Crimea the Ukrainian-Russian border. They also show a Russian map that shows Crimea as Russian territory.

Natalya Sindeyeva stated that the channel is governed by Russian law, which requires that media use maps that denote Russia’s possession of Crimea.

“According to the Article 65 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation Crimea is a territorial entity of the Russian Federation”, – she explained.

Therefore, the National Council decided to withdraw the Dozhd TV channel from the list of foreign broadcasts, the content of which meets the requirements of the European Convention on Transfrontier Television and Ukrainian legislation.

At the same time the regulator has given providers a month to find a replacement for Dozhd TV channel on their networks, since the decision of the withdrawal of Dozhd TV channel from the list will be enacted one month after the publication (approximately on February 13).

The Teleclub TV channel has the jurisdiction in Germany, the member state of the European Union. During the broadcast the National Council has recorded the facts of broadcasting films produced in Russia, which are prohibited by the Ukrainian legislation.

As a reminder, as of December 22, the list of foreign broadcasts (the so-called “list of adapted TV channels”) contained 156 foreign TV channels. After the withdrawal of Dozhd and temporary ban of the Teleclub TV channel Ukrainian providers are allowed to broadcast 154 foreign TV channels.