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Russian politicians speak on TV6 closure
Interfax
Moscow, 22 January: Many Russian politicians are not surprised about the abrupt closure of the TV6 channel, although they have different opinions about it.
Gennadiy Raykov, head of the People's Deputy group in the Duma, said he expected it. In a Tuesday [22 January] interview with Interfax he said that TV6 director Yevgeniy Kiselev "simply gave up his staff like he did at NTV". He described the situation as the enforcement of the law.
Vladimir Pekhtin, leader of Unity faction, thinks passions should not be fanned around the channel. In his opinion, appropriate agencies will sort out the matter.
Boris Nemtsov, leader of the Union of Right Forces, criticized the closure of TV6. Speaking to journalists he stressed the need to keep the reporting team of the channel intact.
Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, Duma deputy speaker for the Liberal Democratic party, accounted for the closure by the stiffness of the channel's reporting team. Its leadership should have drawn corresponding conclusions a long time ago because the developments were taking "a known course", he said. It should have responded and changed the channel correspondingly, he said.
Zhirinovskiy said that the main reason for the closure of TV6 was the broadcasting of its analytical and political programmes for Western viewers. It should have "kept mum", waited for the difficult times to pass in order to return to its line half a year later, he said.
Moscow City Duma chairman Vladimir Platonov regrets the termination of broadcasts on the sixth channel.
"It is a pity that we lost such a channel," he told Interfax on Tuesday. In his opinion, TV6 ranked second in popularity after NTV.
Presidential envoy in the State Duma Aleksandr Kotenkov also spoke on the issue. "I would refrain from evaluations considering that this is a dispute between shareholders," he said. Still, in his opinion, there is nothing political about the situation. If any evaluations are made, the debate "may develop into a political one", he added.
Head of the Russian Journalists' Union Igor Yakovenko has criticized the shutting off of TV-6. In an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio on Tuesday he said the question of the right of citizens to watch or listen to what they want is in question. At the moment "the rights of the viewers have been violated and trampled on", he said.
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