Internet filtering in Russia:

MONITORING. Mid-September

The Prosecutor General's Office and Roskomnadzor require internet providers to restrict access to the video, not yet recognized as extremist.

On September 17, 2012, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation has filed a lawsuit with Moscow Tver District Court to recognize as extremist the film Innocence of Muslims.  On September 19, despite the fact that the lawsuit had not even been brought to court, let alone receiving a verdict, the Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Grin sent instructions to the regional prosecutor's offices, ordering them to block access to Web sites that posted the video.

On the same day, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) addressed the communication providers and the journalistic community in a letter, which "strongly recommended" restricting access to the video even “not waiting for the court judgment."
On September 19, 2012 Roskomnadzor branches in the regions of Altai, Perm, Primorye , Khakassia, Novosibirsk, Saratov, and Tomsk called on internet providers to block access to  "Innocence of Muslims" video. A day later, Roskomnadzor branches in Kaliningrad, Kemerovo and Chelyabinsk regions came forth with similar recommendations.

Regional prosecutors require internet providers to block access to Innocence of Muslims video.

Starting on 19 September 2012, the regional prosecutor’s offices, in compliance with instructions issued by the Prosecutor General's Office to limit access to Innocence of Muslims video, started giving warnings to internet providers for violating the Law on Countering Extremist Activity, and requested that they block access to the video.

Note that the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation filed a lawsuit with Moscow Tver District Court to recognize Innocence of Muslims as extremist on September 17, and it has not been brought to court, meaning, the warnings are being issued for the publication of material, which has not been recognized as extremist.

On September 19 the regional prosecutors of Omsk Region, the prosecutors of Altai, Ingushetia, and Khakassia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Chechnya Republics issued warnings to local internet providers.

On September 20 similar warnings came from St. Petersburg Prosecutor's Office, and the prosecutors of  Republic of Buryatia, the regional prosecutors of Khanty-Mansi, Chukotka, Kamchatka, Stavropol, Khabarovsk, Belgorod, Kemerovo, Murmansk, Novgorod, and Ryazan regions, and Teykov Inter-district Prosecutor's Office of the Ivanovo region.
On September 21 the warnings were issued by the prosecutors of the Republic of Udmurtia, Primorye, Kaluga, and Kursk regions, and the North-West Federal District.

 

The Prosecutor’s Office in Khabarovsk Krai issues a request to restrict access to the books by Goebbels.

On September 6, 2012, it became known that the Prosecutor’s Office of Khabarovsk Krai had filed eight lawsuits requesting providers to restrict access to information.
The formal reason was the prosecutor's audit of compliance with the Law On Countering Extremist Activity. In the course of the inspection several items legally recognized as extremist materials were found to be publicly available.

In particular, the books in question were "The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels, 1945," and “SS Member and the Blood Question:.  The prosecutor’s office demanded that the provider, VimpelCom, Ltd, restricted access to the books.

The Khabarovsk Central Court granted the request from the prosecutor's office requiring providers to restrict access to the books.

It has been reported that similar claims were filed against internet providers Redkom-Internet, Prestige-Internet, and Vostoktelecom.

On September 11, 2012 it was reported that Nadym Municipal Court in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District District ordered the local branch of Rostelecom to restrict access to sites narod.ru and zhurnal.lib.ru upon request from the Prosecutor's Office of Nadym. An inspection, conducted by the Prosecutor’s Office revealed that these sites contained materials included on the Federal List of Extremist Materials.

As a result, the local provider VKS-Internet blocked access to all the resources from the lib.ru and narod.ru domains, including the Samizdat magazine of Maksim Moshkov’s Library, the oldest Russian online library.

The access was blocked by filtering out the IP-address on the border router.
On September 20, 2012 it was reported that the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Tatarstan issued a warning to the head of the VKontakte social network about the impermissibility of violating the anti-extremist legislation.  An inspection, jointly conducted by the Prosecutor's office and the Center to combat extremism of Tatarstan’s Ministry of Interior, has revealed that the social network included the National Bolsheviks of Tatarstan user group with 157 members.

The Prosecutor's office reminded that the National-Bolshevik Party of Russia was banned in Russia as extremist in 2007.

In compliance with the prosecutor's office request the access to the "National Bolsheviks of Tatarstan" page has been blocked. 

The Stavropol Prosecutor’s office orders providers to limit access to websites that promote suicide
On September 21, 2012 it was reported that the Prosecutor’s office of the Stavropol Region found during inspection that major regional providers, including the branches of  VimpelCom, Rostelecom and Ekvant companies, provided access to suicide-promoting materials.
According to the examination, conducted by the Bureau of linguistic expertise of Stavropol State University, several sites, with unspecified names contained suicide propaganda and detailed descriptions of the different ways to commit suicide.

Therefore, the Prosecutor's Office filed claims with Lenin District Court and the October District Court of Stavropol, requesting that the courts require providers to restrict access to these sites by utilizing content filters on their border routers.

Source: Agentura.Ru