Moscow calls on the US to protect media representatives from police brutality, the Russian Foreign Ministry comments on the US police attack on Nicole Roussell, a producer of the Russian Sputnik News Agency.
Despite the press badge Roussell was holding up and repeated verbal assurances of her affiliation with the media, the reporter was shot at with rubber bullets.
"We regard the deliberate attack <...> as an unfriendly step on the part of the US authorities, as well as a flagrant violation of their international legal obligations to ensure the safety of journalists and their unhindered work," the Ministry notes adding that even after the journalist was shot at with rubber bullets and fragmentation grenades, “a police officer shoved the journalist to the ground and literally trampled her”.
"This outrageous and unlawful brutality against a representative of the media, which are, in fact, seen as the guarantor of any democratic society, occurred at the White House, an institution that hails America as a model democracy," the Ministry added.
The ministry calls on international bodies concerned and human rights NGOs to respond to this incident.
Earlier it was reported that last Sunday, police sprayed pepper gas in the face of RIA Novosti correspondent Mikhail Turgiev, when he covered the riots in Minneapolis.
After that, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz apologized to the journalists who were attacked.
The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Arlem Desir called on the US authorities to ensure the safe work of journalists covering the protests. The official representative of the UN Secretary-General Stephane Dujarric said that "all these cases should be investigated."
Riots in the United States broke out last week after the death of an African-American man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis.
There were videos on the Internet showing that a man was handcuffed and knocked down while being arrested, with one of the police officers putting a knee on his neck. According to the video, the detainee repeated several times that he could not breathe, and then went quiet. Floyd later died in intensive care.
After the demonstrations began, four police officers were fired, and one of them was charged with negligent homicide.
In many cities, due to the protests, there is a state of emergency and a curfew.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
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