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Thursday, 24.04.2025, 02:10
Controversial TV broadcast about Lithuania has attracted interest of Latvian Police

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The Security Police is informed of the broadcast, and points out that the feature story itself is highly biased, as it only has the point of view of those believed to be responsible for the bloody Soviet crackdown in Vilnius in January of 1991, the Security Police explained to LETA.
The Security Police will continue to closely follow the activities of Lithuanian institutions on this matter, and will make decisions on future action accordingly.
As reported, the Lithuanian Radio and Television has demanded that PBK withdraw the "offensive and untrue interpretation" of the January 1991 events in Lithuania, which the television channel aired last Friday.
The commission has also demanded that the channel apologize to the Lithuanian people for offending their national pride and the faith Lithuanians have in their historical fight for freedom.
Meanwhile, the Latvian National Electronic Mass Media Council will probe the PBK broadcast.
On January 13, 1991, in an attempt to overthrow the new Lithuanian government, Soviet troops moved into downtown Vilnius to capture the TV tower and clashed with crowds of government supporters, killing at least 14 and injuring 600 civilians.
Meanwhile, the mentioned broadcast by PBK maintained that there were no casualties that could be blamed on Soviet troops, and that the whole affair is just a provocation made up by the Lithuanian authorities.
The press secretary of the media holding company Baltijas Mediju alianse Edzus Vejins, which operates the Latvian-based Russian language television channel Pervij Baltijskij kanal (PBK), said that the feature story the channel recently aired about Lithuania, is not the point of view of PBK or its news team.
He said that PBK had received the feature story from Russia's Channel One, and broadcast it without getting acquainted with the material.
PBK points out that the responsibility for the contents of the feature story is, first of all, by its authors and the persons that have expressed such a point of view.
PBK says that it is preparing a letter to the program director, Aleksejs Pimanovs, who made the decision to air the broadcast.
PBK has also expressed regret that the feature story has caused much offense to Lithuanians. PBK has also offered to air the Lithuanian point of view on its Lithuanian information platform ''Lietuvas laiks''.
The television channel has also expressed readiness to file suit in a court of law against those who have expressed the desire to revoke the channel's broadcasting license, in such a way undermining the channel's reputation.