Putin promotes principles of free speech in RT interview.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/59091
Question: France continues to refuse accreditation to our television channel. Work is underway to develop a law that would allow banning us just for the fact that we are connected with Russia. How can you describe relations between Russia and France in this context, and what other issues have to be overcome?
Vladimir Putin: What is important here is not Russia-France relations in information exchange, but rather our overall approaches to information and its exchange and its free distribution โ these are the things that are important.
We are aware of and have always heard our western colleagues say that the main principle of democracy is freedom of information. But creating various sorts of lists and councils that should decide on which media are good and which are bad โ this, I believe, is totally unacceptable and has nothing to do with democracy.
Because, if we want to implement the principle of free information and its access to users, that is, to citizens of our countries, we should not make administrative efforts to ban anything or restrict anything using political and administrative structures. If you disagree with anything, you can counter it by offering your own point of view and give the viewers, listeners and internet users the opportunity to figure it out and make a decision on their own on whether this is true or it is distorted. I think this is the direction to take.