Roskomnadzor blocks access to Ukrainian Crisis Media Center site in Russia

Russia’s Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications (Roskomnadzor) has blocked access to the site of Ukrainian Crisis Media Center (UCMC) on the territory of the Russian Federation.

This is reported by the UCMC.

A message was sent to the official mail of the organization. The reason for blocking became a press release after the briefing of Mustafa Dzhemilev, Refat Chubarov and Lenur Islyamov on the blockade of the Crimea, published on September 8, 2015.

“We inform you of the limitation of access to information resource http://uacrisis.org/ru/33187-blockade-der-krim in the information and telecommunications networks, including the Internet network, based on the order of the Russian Federation Prosecutor General’s Office of August 26, 2016 No. 27-31-2016 / Id3637-16 as containing incitement to riots, extremist activities, participation in mass (public) events held in violation of the established order,” the message reads.

It is also noted that the owner of the information resource is required to “immediately remove the information” and then “send a message about this to the Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications with the purpose of inspection and restoration of access in case the removal is confirmed.”

The team of the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center states it will not remove any content from the site based on this requirement.

“Describing the statements of the leaders of the Crimean Tatar people as ‘extremist’, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation must not forget that Russia annexed the homeland of the indigenous people of Crimea in violation of a number of norms of the international law,” the UCMC’s statement says.

“The claims of the Prosecutor General’s Office and Roskomnadzor are another example of attack on freedom of speech, which is carried out under the same guise of ‘fighting extremism’ as the arrests of the Crimean Tatar activists and Ukrainian patriots and ban on activities of Mejlis. Being the non-governmental organization with the aim to provide objective information about the events in Ukraine, we will not obey censorship, especially on the part of the state, which wages the hybrid war against Ukraine,” the UCMC explained.