A Melbourne community radio station has cut ties with a volunteer Russian-language broadcaster after complaints that his program was promoting war propaganda amid the invasion of Ukraine.
The program on 3ZZZ broadcast pro-Kremlin information about the war in Ukraine, including a speech by Russian president Vladimir Putin where he claimed the war was justified because of the need to “demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine”. The program had a one-hour slot on Wednesdays and Fridays.
The Age revealed last week the country’s media watchdog was investigating the program hosted by volunteer Oleg Bydanov on 3ZZZ – Australia’s largest multilingual community ratio station – after receiving multiple complaints alleging it was broadcasting propaganda.
Bydanov has been contacted for comment.
On Monday, the 3ZZZ president, George Salloum, said the station had suspended the broadcaster after complaints that the material breached its codes of practice.
“3ZZZ condemns all acts of war and violence,” he said on behalf of the station’s council.
Salloum said the council had requested a formal response to the allegations from Bydanov and met with the volunteer to discuss the “seriousness of the matter”.
He said the station had also appointed independent accredited translators to convert the content to English. The station had previously said it would take up to six weeks to investigate the matter due to the need to translate the program’s content.
The station said it would continue to monitor the Russian program to ensure it complied with its codes of practice.
During Russian’s invasion of Ukraine, 3ZZZ said it reminded all of its broadcasters about their obligations under the station’s constitution and its codes of practice.
“3ZZZ promotes harmony and diversity and contributes to an inclusive, cohesive and culturally diverse Australian community, the first guiding principle under our community radio broadcasting codes of practice,” Salloum said.
3ZZZ broadcasts programs in more than 60 languages and is estimated to have about 400,000 listeners nationwide.
