US-funded broadcaster asks European court to block Russian fines

Moscow has moved to penalise Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for failing to label its reports with the ‘foreign agent’ tag.

The Moscow bureau of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) has called on Europe’s top human rights court to order Russian authorities against enforcing fines that could cost the broadcaster millions of dollars. The multimedia news outlet, which is funded by Washington, has been heavily fined this year for what Russia says is a repeated failure to label itself as a media outlet “performing the functions of a foreign agent”. RFE/RL says Russian authorities have the power to place it into insolvency or block access to its media sites if the fines are unpaid – or do both.