“Svoboda” against propaganda: satellite package in Russian
March 5, 2024
The new Russian-language satellite package “Freedom” was officially launched on Tuesday, March 5th. On the initiative of the international human rights organization Reporters Without Borders, nine Russian-language television and radio channels are now broadcast via satellite across Europe. including Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, and the Middle East and North Africa.
Thus, within the framework of the “Freedom” package, the following programs will be broadcast: “Echo”, “Radio Sakharov”, “Current Time”, “Euroradio”, the Moldovan television channel TV8, the Berlin television company “Ost/West 24”, as well as joint channels with the participation of “Important Stories”, “Frio”, “Novaya Gazeta Europe”, Irina Shikhman and others. A new separate channel is called “Belarus Tomorrow”, another channel is being created by the studio of Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon. In the coming months, other media outlets and journalists will join the broadcast. Additionally, the creators are working on a separate news channel. As a result, the satellite package is planned to be expanded to 25 independent Russian-language television and radio channels. DW will also provide its content in Russian.
The Freedom package is available free of charge in unencrypted format on Eutelsat’s Hotbird satellite at position 13E. Thus, its potential audience is 4.5 million households in Russia, as well as approximately 800 thousand in the territories of Ukraine temporarily occupied by Russia. According to Reporters Without Borders, all these households already watch television from this satellite position and do not need additional equipment to watch the new channels. There are about 3.5 million such families on the territory of Ukraine. And in Belarus and Moldova there are hundreds of thousands, since this satellite position has been popular since the early 1990s, so the creators count on good coverage in the post-Soviet space as a whole.
Project Freedom head Jim Filippov argues that the Hotbird 13G satellite is equipped with the latest technology that will prevent a Russian or other authoritarian government from jamming its signal: “I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s not that easy given our anti-jamming capabilities.” “. Filippov also spoke to reporters about plans to expand Svoboda satellite broadcasting around the world, highlighting that interest in its content is growing.
Free flow of information without advertising
The project’s objectives are to restore the regular flow of information between Europe and Russia, free from military propaganda, and to support Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian civil society. “Liberdade” aims to demonstrate that “democracies can export independent journalism to overcome the logic of propaganda exported by dictatorships”, says Repórteres Sem Fronteiras.
“In the context of limited digital space in the Russian Federation, the Freedom satellite package is a testament to our continued commitment to the right of access to independent media and an attempt to strengthen the resilience of the Russian journalistic community in exile,” said Christophe Deloire, General Secretary of Reporters Without Borders. According to him, 6 to 9 percent of the adult population of the Russian Federation reads, watches or listens to independent Russian media outlets, and it is now important to expand their coverage to preserve freedom of opinion.
The Freedom project is non-profit and was created based on the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders, which allocates a budget to it, its representatives told a DW correspondent. This represents around 3 million euros per year. The organization is also appealing to donors to support the Freedom satellite package and hopes to secure additional funding, for example from the European Parliament. So far, no EU funds have been invested in this project. “I have no money for you, but I have strong moral support,” said European Commission Vice-President Vera Jourova at the opening.
The European Union encouraged the project
The official launch of the Freedom package took place on March 5th at the European Parliament in Brussels, with the support of Estonian MEP Andrus Ansip and with the participation of the Vice-President of the European Commission, Vera Jurova, originally from the Czech Republic. They remembered the times when their countries listened to “voices” from abroad to discover the truth about “what is happening around the corner”. Yurova announced this project a year earlier, in February 2023. The EU believes that it is necessary to support independent Russian journalists, help expand the scope of their activities and fill the gap in the Russian-language media market, “to that can create more content and distribute it more widely”, without interference in editorial policies.” “I want to support the idea that people should have a choice”, said the European Commissioner then.
According to her, access to independent and diverse sources of information is one of the foundations for the functioning of democratic societies. “The Freedom satellite package is in line with the European Commission’s commitments to guarantee media pluralism and freedom of information, and we encourage initiatives that contribute to the implementation of these principles,” said Jourova before the opening ceremony.
Technical parameters for receiving “Freedom”:
Satellite: Hotbird 13G at 13.0E
Transponder: tp 122
Frequency: 10.949 MHz
Polarization: Vertical
Symbol Rate: 27,500 Ksim/s
FEC: 2/3
Modulation: DVB-S2/8PSK
Source: DW
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