Latvian authorities revoke broadcast license of exiled Russian TV station Dozhd

Latvia’s National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP) is revoking the broadcast license of the independent Russian news outlet Dozhd (TV Rain), the council’s chairman, Ivars Āboliņš, said on Tuesday.

According to Āboliņš, the decision was made “in connection with the threat to national security and the public order.” Dozhd will stop broadcasting in Latvia on December 8.

“Having assessed the violations as a whole, the NEPLP is convinced that Dozhd’s leadership does not understand and is not aware of the significance and severity of the violations and therefore cannot operate on Latvian territory,” Āboliņš told the news agency Leta. On Twitter, he added that “everyone must observe and respect Latvia’s laws.”

The NEPLP will also demand that Dozhd’s YouTube channel be blocked in Latvia.

Dozhd was blocked in Russia just days after the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine and, like many independent Russian news outlets, was forced to stop working. In June, news broke that Dozhd had obtained a broadcasting license in Latvia, where many of the outlet’s journalists had moved. In July, Dozhd announced that it would resume broadcasting.

In early December, the NEPLP fined Dozhd 10,000 euros for broadcasting an image of a map that included Crimea as part of Russia and for using the phrase “our army” to refer to the Russian Armed Forces. In addition, Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks called for the outlet’s employees to have their residence permits revoked after host Alexey Korostelev said on air that the channel had “managed to help” Russian soldiers. Korostelev said afterward that he misspoke. The Latvian State Security Service subsequently launched an investigation into the network’s activities.