CAPE TOWN - Pressure continues to mount on MultiChoice after abruptly stopping the broadcasting of Russia Today on its news bouquet, with the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) demanding answers.
MultiChoice confirmed that as of Wednesday Russia Today (RT) would not be carried on the DStv platform until further notice.
“Sanctions imposed on Russia by the EU have led to the global distributor of the channel ceasing to provide the broadcast feed in all suppliers, including MultiChoice,” the company said in a statement.
This has left a number of South African organisations outraged saying this boarded on censorship, denying viewers the right to choose the kind of content they wanted to consume.
The Freedom of Expression Institute of South Africa (FXI) was among the organisations leading the chorus of condemnation against the decision, saying this would leave viewers poorer.
“Any choice that is taken away from the viewers when it comes to different sources of information just impacts on access to information, so it’s something that we would discourage and the viewing public will be the poorer for it. There’s no reason why it (the RT channel) should not continue, and viewers should make their own decisions about what they believe and what they don’t believe,” said FXI Executive Director Samkelo Mokhine.
“One could’ve perhaps seen this coming in the sense that all these other Western countries are taking the stance … that this would end up being something expected of South Africa with the country being so integrated into the Western media and one would expect that the pressure would be brought to bear on them to take s similar stance.”
Icasa said the broadcast of RT on the DStv platform is and continues to be, a commercial agreement between the subscription TV broadcaster, MultiChoice and RT.
It said the authority’s role in the broadcasting of RT has been solely limited to channel authorisation as submitted by the licensee (in this case, MultiChoice) and approved by Icasa prior to the channel being introduced.
“Our licensing and compliance division has not received any notification by MultiChoice confirming the discontinuation of the channel on its DStv platform,” said Icasa chairperson Dr Keabetswe Modimoeng.
The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) called on MultiChoice to reinstate the channel with immediate immediate effect or face a boycott.
“Blocking RT is an insult to media freedom and freedom of expression in South Africa. We have every right to access different views on the Russia-Ukraine war; we cannot allow MultiChoice, whom we pay millions of rands, to play politics and take away this right,” said Sadtu national spokesperson Nomusa Cembi.
EFF national spokesperson Sinawo Tambo said: “We demand the immediate reinstatement of Russia Today, and not this condescending move which seeks to force feed a one-sided narrative on the conflict between Ukraine, Russia and nations which belong to the hypocritical Nato.”
Black First Land First (BLF) said: “MultiChoice acts in support of the whole international web of imperialism which is cheered by Google, Meta, Apple, Netflix, and even Ofcom that have banned Russia’s media outlets.”
Meanwhile South Africa abstained from voting for a resolution on Wednesday evening demanding that Russia immediately end its military operations in Ukraine.
A total of 141 countries voted in favour of the resolution, which reaffirmed Ukrainian sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.
South Africa along with 33 other countries abstained from the UN’s emergency vote.
“Our position as expressed during the discussions of the emergency special session over the last few days, is that South Africa remains deeply concerned by the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and the regional and international socio-economic implications,” South Africa’s permanent representative to the UN, ambassador Mathu Joyini said.
“We strongly urge all sides to uphold international law, including humanitarian law and human rights law, as well as the principles of the UN Charter, including sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Cape Times