OSCE Chief Reiterates Pledge To Uphold Helsinki Final Act After Sputnik Estonia Scandal

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published January 10, 2020 | 05:32 PM

Thomas Greminger, the Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has reiterated the organization's commitment to the media freedom after the Estonian government threatened Sputnik journalists working in the Baltic country

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 10th January, 2020) Thomas Greminger, the Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has reiterated the organization's commitment to the media freedom after the Estonian government threatened Sputnik journalists working in the Baltic country.

On December, 24 Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the Rossiya Segodnya news agency, which Sputnik is a part of, and the RT broadcaster sent a letter to Greminger informing him that employees of Sputnik Estonia had received warnings from the Baltic country's Police and Border Guard board that they would face criminal prosecution unless they stopped working for the news agency by January 1.

"Commitments to freedom of the media and the free flow of information is enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act," Greminger said in his reply.

He added that the OSCE representative on media freedom was monitoring the situation.

"I understand that my colleague Harlem Desir, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, is closely following the situation of Sputnik Estonia, and that he has already conveyed his concerns to the Estonian authorities and requested more information about the case. He has also encouraged the Estonian authorities to refrain from putting any unnecessary limitation on the work of foreign journalists or media," Greminger stated.

Rossiya Segodnya has urged all international and European organizations to state their positions on Estonia's actions.

The Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe was signed in 1975 in the Finnish capital to ease tensions between Western and Eastern Europe and pledges the signatories to respect various categories of human rights, including the freedom of information.