What lessons are people around the world drawing from the U.S. imposition of sanctions against the Russian media group, Rossiya Segodnya and its media outlets, as well as anyone who works with them in or outside Russia? The United States now “are allergic to freedom of expression and are allergic to the very democracy they talk so much about,” Celeste Sáenz de Miera, Secretary General of the Club de Periodistas de México (Journalists Club of Mexico), told Sputnik Mundo Sept. 5, when asked about those sanctions.
She called the sanctions “an offense to their own people,” which “demonstrate that they [the U.S. government] are not as fond of democracy as they so often say…. They consider themselves to be the guardians of the intellect of the American people by saying what is good and what is bad for the people to see and analyze…. They do not allow you to hear anything different from what they control through the American media and the big NATO-linked corporate interests which dominate the whole spectrum of communications.” Nor has the Biden administration presented any evidence to back up its charge of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election, she added.
Sáenz de Miera and the Journalists Club are known internationally for their fierce advocacy of freedom of speech. Each year the Club issues its prestigious awards to journalists, media and institutions for exemplary journalism and work on behalf of freedom of speech. Julian Assange, for example, received such an awarded in 2019, as did Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche in 2022.