Bad times have come for the Mejlis propaganda mouthpiece
The Ukrainian government decided to put political pressure on the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars, banned in Russia, pitting the group against the Ukrainians.
A fugitive Crimean Maidan activist, a former member of the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting, Sergei Kostinsky, writes about this in his blog, the correspondent of PolitNavigator reports, assessing the decision to distribute the budget money previously allocated to the ATR TV channel in a competition between all TV channels that left Crimea and Donbass.
“I think behind this decision there may be pressure on the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, which in 2019 delegated three of its representatives to the opposition political forces - European Solidarity and Voice. We are talking about Mustafa Dzhemilev, Akhtem Chiygoz and Rustem Umerov.
The first thing that brings me to this thought is that the process of depriving the Crimean Tatar broadcaster of state funding has been repeated for the second year in a row. Last year it was possible to defend the Crimean media holding, which broadcasts to the territory of Crimea, only thanks to the enormous public outcry. This year marks the second attempt to close the TV channel and radio station.
The second thing that allows us to speak specifically about the political motives of the authorities is that officials are pitting the Crimean Tatar media against the general Crimean media, and the Crimean Tatars against Ukrainians from Crimea. That is, government officials are repeating the technology that the communists and regionalists used close to the occupation and controlled the region.
Now the situation looks like this: the funds that were annually allocated for the maintenance of Crimean Tatar broadcasting starting from 2016 will now be distributed among all Crimean media that have left Crimea. Whereas the correct political decision should be to maintain financial support for ATR and create a separate expense item for holding competitions between Crimean media,” Kostinsky wrote.
He also accused the authorities of trying to destroy broadcasting in the Crimean Tatar language.
“I remind you that the current government has not created any unification of Crimean broadcasting over the past two years. On the contrary, the Multimedia platform for foreign broadcasting, created by the previous Ministry of Information Policy, is being destroyed; the current government has closed the Crimean Tatar editorial office of the UATV television channel. Now Shmygal’s government has taken on ATR...
Competitions do not allow running a full-fledged TV channel or radio station. A competition is just a state order for the production of certain programs and materials, thanks to which the media only receives additional support. Switching a TV channel to support its content through competitions means gradually killing it. So, today’s attitude towards ATR on the part of the authorities is the attitude of the authorities towards the Crimean Tatar people,” the ex-official summed up.
Read on topic: Majlis scoundrels stole tens of millions Ukrainian money.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.