On 6 December 2022, the National Electronic Mass Media Council of Latvia (hereinafter – NEPLP) made a decision to cancel the broadcast permit issued to SIA “TV Rain”, as this mass medium has seriously violated the requirements of the Electronic Mass Media Law applied to the operation of electronic media, the creation of programmes, and poses a significant threat for national security.

The decision was made after evaluating a number of violations committed by “TV Rain”, i.e., failure to provide language track in the national language, which is a mandatory obligation and which the media undertook to provide upon receiving a broadcast licence, depicting Crimea on the map as a part of Russian territory, calling the Russian army “our army”, a possible offer of support for the army of Russia - a country supporting terrorism. The information received from the State Security Service was also taken into account.

NEPLP has clearly concluded that SIA “TV Rain” threatens national security or significantly threatens public order and security, it expresses support for the activities of a terrorist state and any direct or indirect collection or transfer of financial resources or other goods to a party, which is involved in an armed conflict taking place outside the territory of the Republic of Latvia and whose action is directed against the territorial integrity or political independence of a state or is otherwise colliding with international law binding upon the Republic of Latvia. Therefore, operation of SIA “TV Rain” does not correspond to the interests of the state and public security of Latvia. Besides, the identified actions and violations were committed deliberately, as SIA “TV Rain” was aware of and clearly understood the obligations set by Latvian regulatory acts for the operation of the media.

NEPLP, after hearing the opinion of “TV Rain” within the administrative offence cases, made sure that “TV Rain” does not understand the nature of violations, it is unable to change its actions and prevent harmful consequences.

“Latvia is a law-governed and democratic state that follows the rule of law. Latvia invited and allowed a large number of Russian-related media and journalists to enter the country, who can work here freely and independently, in compliance with Latvian laws. Latvia is still open to media to come here and work. Since the spring, when these media and journalists arrived here, monitoring the Latvian information space as a whole, we have not found a single, I emphasise, not a single case when any of these media or journalists violated the law. No other media had such problems and only “TV Rain” has committed violations; moreover, it systematically committed them. Unfortunately, “TV Rain” has systematically, significantly and unequivocally violated the regulatory acts and has been punished accordingly,” says Chairperson of the NEPLP Ivars Āboliņš.

The decision comes into effect on 8 December 2022, when “TV Rain” must stop broadcasting in Latvia. 

Decision available here.

Решение доступно здесь.

Décision disponible ici

Beschluss hier verfügbar

The broadcast licence for “TV Rain” was issued on 6 June 2022.