Status: 07/26/2021 4:22 p.m.
Kremlin critic Navalny is in custody and his organization is classified as extremist – now his websites are also blocked. The General Prosecutor’s Office in Moscow blocked a total of 49 pages, including those from other members of the opposition.
The opposition in Russia has to cope with another setback. On the orders of the General Prosecutor’s Office in Moscow, dozens of websites were blocked by Kremlin critics, most of them relating to the imprisoned opposition activist Alexei Navalny.
A total of 49 pages were blocked in Russia, said the independent organization Roskomswoboda. The organization advocates free access to the Internet. All pages of Navalny have been blocked, including those in the regions. The portals of the opposition party Lyubov Sobol, Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation and the independent Alliance of Doctors, which uncovered grievances in the corona pandemic in Russia, are no longer easily accessible.
The authorities had previously classified Nawalny’s organizations as extremist. Navalny’s employee Leonid Volkov said that before the parliamentary elections on September 19, the site for the so-called smart voting would soon be blocked. There, the opposition wants to give voters recommendations as to which candidate they should cast their vote for in order to prevent the candidate from the Kremlin party, United Russia, from entering the new State Duma.
Independent and critical media also affected
In Russia, thousands of Internet sites have now been blocked, including many from opposition members, but also from independent and critical media. The authorities justify the bans with violations of Russian laws, according to which, for example, pages with extremist content may not be accessible. Those affected, on the other hand, complain that criticism of the Russian power apparatus is increasingly criminalized and that freedom of expression is threatened more and more. Blocking can be bypassed, for example, via a protected network connection (VPN).
Revelations viewed a million times
On Nawalny’s website, there were revelations that attracted millions of people, including serious allegations of corruption against members of the government, Kremlin officials and other state officials. Most recently there was the film “Volodin. The Billionaire In Love With Putin” about the President of Parliament Vyacheslav Volodin. On YouTube, the clip had more than three million views on Monday.
Navalny is considered to be the most important adversary of President Vladimir Putin. About a year ago he survived a nerve poison attack in Russia, for which he blames the Kremlin. After his treatment in Germany, he was arrested in Russia on his return in January and later sentenced to more than two years in a camp for alleged violations of probation conditions. The judgment met with sharp criticism internationally.