This petition was submitted during the 2015–2017 Conservative government
Rejected petition States that sponsor murder should not be permitted to broadcast in the UK.
The Litvinenko enquiry has presented proof of Russian State involvement in murder. States that sponsor murder should not be permitted to broadcast in the UK. Russian State media should be banned from broadcast in the UK.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s about something that the UK Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for.
Neither the Government nor Parliament can “ban” a broadcaster. The regulation and licensing of broadcasters are the responsibility of Ofcom, which is an independent regulator.
There are certain conditions which must be met before Ofcom can issue a licence to a broadcaster. If these conditions are violated while the licence is in force, Ofcom can impose sanctions up to and including revocation of the licence. This is a decision for Ofcom, which is takes independently of the Government and Parliament.
The Broadcasting Act 1990 (as amended by the Broadcasting Act 1996 and the Communications Act 2003) lays down a number of restrictions on who can hold Ofcom’s broadcasting licences.
You could start a petition calling on Parliament to change this law to add a new licence condition. For example, the new condition could require that where a station was funded by a foreign government and that government was named by the UK Government in defined circumstances, the licence application to Ofcom would fail or any existing licence would be revoked by Ofcom.
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.