A Russian journalist has been taken into police custody after she bravely interrupted a live news programme to hold an anti-war protest for Ukraine.
TV editor Marina Ovsyannikova, who worked for the Channel One Russia TV channel, held up a sign which translates from Russian as: "Stop the war, don't believe the propaganda, here you are being lied to."
An anchor was speaking during the broadcast when the journalist appeared on camera but, within seconds, the news programme cut away to a pre-recorded segment.
The moment was a risky protest in a country where independent media has been blocked or shuttered.
Diversion during Channel One main state TV evening show tonight - a woman with No to War poster yells stop the war. Channel One already "probing the incident regarding the outsider's presence during live broadcast." pic.twitter.com/wHyV9lyHZe
— Mary Ilyushina (@maryilyushina) March 14, 2022
It has now become illegal to contradict the Russian government’s narrative of the war.
Russia’s state TV regularly amplifies the government line that says troops entered Ukraine to save people from “neo-Nazis” and to defend Russians from a country that was preparing to attack.
The invasion of Ukraine is being characterised in Russia as a “special military operation”.
Marina Ovsyannikova latest
An independent human rights group that monitors political arrests said Ms Ovsyannikova has now been taken into police custody.
The group, OVD-Info, posted a video of Ms Ovsyannikova speaking out against the war on its website.
“What is going on now is a crime,” she said. “Russia is an aggressor country and Vladimir Putin is solely responsible for that aggression.”
Speaking in a video address early on Tuesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky praised Ms Ovsyannikova.
People in Russia have limited access to information from outside their country while Instagram has also been restricted.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently signed into law a measure that criminalises the spread of information that is considered by the Kremlin to be “fake” news.
Media outlets and individuals who publish information that deviates from Mr Putin’s narrative are being targeted.
There have been blocks imposed on the BBC, the US government-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Latvia-based website Meduza.
Russia has also blocked social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.
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