Estonia cancels visas of Russian television journalists over a discriminatory film about Jehovah Witnesses
Estonia has banned two “Russia 1” journalists, Elena Erofeeva and Pavel Kostrikov, from entering the Schengen zone for the next five years because of a film about the religious organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses, reported the Estonian Public Broadcasting Corporation, referencing the annual report of the country's security police.
The report states that the journalists had obtained their visas at the Italian and French embassies. They first went to Finland and then took a ferry to Estonia to begin preparing an item for the program “Vesti” that “mocks and incites hostility towards the activities of this religious organization”.
According to the Estonian special services division, the journalists had used hidden cameras to videotape the Jehovah's Witnesses community in Kesklinn, Tallinn. The clip was used in a report that included shots of “a similar nature” taken in Finland.
The Estonian police claimed that Erofeeva and Kostrikov’s activities could be interpreted as discrimination on the basis of religion and could lead to the incitement of hostilities