New falsifications in the airwaves: The Jõhvi cemetery story has further developments.

11.07.2017

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the occurrences at the Jõhvi cemetery, where a letter sent to the county administration by private individuals received biased reports in the Russian media. New elements were added last week to the case where on the 4th of July the news website Izvestija along with the TV channel REN TV put out a video report „ Nazism after death: Russians are not allowed to be buried in Estonian cemeteries“ has brought fresh falsehoods to the airwaves from propaganda news reporters who had visited the Jõhvi site.

-The report claims that there are plans for the re-interment of Russians already buried at Jõhvi cemetery. This is a blatant lie that is in contradiction with all known facts. There is absolutely no basis to this story, re-interment is not mentioned in the original letter nor was it ever brought up in any commentaries from the representative of the county administration or the pastor of Jõhvi Mihkli congregation, Peeter Kaldur.

-The videos claim there are also plans to remove the remains of Soviet army personnel already buried at Jõhvi cemetery. They are trying to link this claim with the Bronze soldier events and have stated that it is all part of a long-term Estonian national plan. These contentions with associated themes give the stories a strong propaganda message, but they are untrue and in the given context, there is no basis for this allegation what so ever.

-Estonia has been brought forth as being allied with Nazism in the title of the story, which is not based on anything stated in the article. The heading of the story on REN TV is clearly meant as propaganda:  „Estonian cemeteries forbid Russian burials“ is unbalanced, malicious and a false statement.

-Reading the statements shows clearly that one of the principles of journalism, that the story should show all sides of the issue, has not been expressed. Nowhere in the videos are the views of the letter senders expressed. Unfortunately, the video does give the appearance that the local population in Jõhvi is already crying over the re-interments.

Propastop initially thought that, the incident regarding the Jõhvi letter was a one time only propaganda episode. The latest reports seem to give testimony to the fact that this may be the start of a larger attack on information. This is confirmed by the story growing from internet websites to television news, which in Russian media is a strong notation on the importance of the incident. The theme has been taken up recently in ERM with its publisher, Tõnis Lukas discussing it in his latest editorial.

In regards to the Tartu Raadi memorial monument, the Russian media has already found it note worthy of being mentioned.

What type of channels are REN and Izvestija?

REN TV is one of the largest specialty channels in Russia that can be viewed in Estonia as well. A close associate of the Kremlin owns the channel, the media concern, NMG, (National Media Group), whose majority owners are Russian oil and gas companies. We have moved the TV station to our list of propaganda stations due to the afore mentioned story.

The newspaper Izvextija website is also owned by NMG and references the group’s TV stations REN TV and 5TV stories. Izvestija is not in our propaganda website list put together in the spring because it was only recently established this summer. After the Jõhvi article, it is assured that a place on our notorious list is reserved for iz.ru. In addition to propaganda channels, we are naming a few propaganda individuals that were involved in the video reports: Anatoli Majorov, Dmitri Jemeljanov, Konstantin Antonov, Anna Škljarova, Nadežda Tkatšova, Anastasia Mamina.

Pictures: screenshots of the cited episodes.