Russia to censor extremist sites

IN AN UNSURPRISING and predictable move, the Russians have decided that it’s high time they did what every other non democracy worth its salt has been doing for ages, and censor the Internet.

Or, as Vyacheslav Sizov of the Russian prosecutor's office put it to state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, the Russian government will be bringing in new legal amendments to block, what he calls, “extremist” Websites.

Not that media censorship is a new thing in Russia; both television and newspapers have long been under the iron grip of state control, but the Internet had thus far managed to remain fairly open, spreading its wikipedia like Pravda to all who cared to read it.

But now, according to Sizov, a top official at the prosecutor general's office, any website that the government decides is hosting extremist material will be blocked by Russian ISPs “within a month”.

A month?! The KGB must be slowing down and losing its touch.

Of course human rights activists are already up in arms about the whole thing, warning that the system is just an excuse for manipulation and abuse by government officials who want to censor any sort of criticism of their oligarchic mafia style rule.

The courageous director of the Centre of Journalism in Extreme Situations, Oleg Panfilov, commented to AFP that "It is difficult to find anyone who is not against extremism but it depends on how the law is used. The government uses (it) selectively." Of course, poor, brave Oleg might need to watch out for poisoned vodka and keep looking repeatedly over his shoulder for men in dark glasses from now on.

AFP also mentions that news website www.gazeta.ru was given a serious ticking off last year, on the grounds of extremism, after it (like most other news sites in the world) wrote about the satirical Mohammed cartoons. Could it be that the new extremism laws are actually just Russian pandering to Iranian sensitivities? After all, Russia wouldn’t want to lose out on those lucrative enriched uranium contracts now, would it? µ

L’Inq
AFP