Eduard Nedeliayev, a pro-Ukrainian blogger, was arrested in the occupied city of Luhansk. Nedeliayev is accused by Russian-backed militants of cooperating with the Ukrainian Secret Services and the Aidar battalion. The blogger was claimed by the “Ministry of State Security” to post extremist materials on social media. However, his supporters assert that Nedeliayev was only sharing the real life under military-held Luhansk. In a search conducted at his house,…
Rafis Kashapov, an activist from the Tatar community, was sentenced on September 15 to three years in jail for “calling for separatism” and “inciting ethnic hatred” on posts that he published on social media last year. His actions were described by the court as “aimed at violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation”. The charges related to four posts that Kashapov published on his…
Russia briefly banned Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, after users edited a page about Indian hashish. The ban, which came from Roskomnadzor, the Kremlin’s media watchdog, lasted less than 24 hours, but sent alarm bells ringing around the global online community, who are already worried by Russia’s increasing limits on digital activity. The brief ban came after a court decision…
Reddit, the social networking and news site, has had a tumultuous week in Russia. In that small time frame the online billboard was banned, unbanned and introduced self-censorship. In opposition to a Reddit post, in Russian, on how to grow psilocybin (magic) mushrooms, Moscow banned the site for several days, saying promoting criminal activity, such as growing illegal drugs, violated…
A slew of media outlets in Russia-annexed Crimea have been shut down by authorities, evoking outcry from the United States, who say Moscow is ignoring media freedoms. Crimea’s sole independent TV channel, ATR, which broadcasts in the Crimean Tatar language, was taken off air due to alleged mistakes in re-registering for its license. However, the move was widely seen as an…
