On September 17, 2024, hundreds of bipers worn by members of Hezbollah, Lebanon, exploded, bringing a severe move to the pro-Iranian Islamist movement. That day, Sputnik, Russian state radio, broadcasts in its Arabic version its very special coverage of the event. The message: The Middle East would be more at peace if he approached Moscow. On the air, criticism against the “Double language of Western human rights” multiply. One of the people interviewed says that “Daesh [l’organisation Etat islamique] And terrorists are tools in the hands of the United States ”.
Ironically, this propaganda is broadcast on the waves left vacant by … BBC earlier in the year. In the absence of a budget, the British media ended its radio in the Arabic language, which was previously broadcast throughout the Middle East. In Lebanon, Sputnik bought neglected waves.
“Closing this radio was a mistake”today recognizes Jonathan Munro, the boss of the BBC World Service, the information service broadcast internationally of the BBC. To partially compensate, it has relaunched several hours of daily radio broadcast in Gaza and, more recently, in Syria after the fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. In these places ravaged by conflicts, the waves remain one of the best ways to reach the population.
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Source: Lemonde