Posted on July 11, 2012 - by Venik
Russia adopts stringent internet controls amid censorship concerns
New act will place Russia behind a ‘great firewall’ similar to China’s, critics say
The Russian parliament on Wednesday unanimously adopted a controversial bill that boosts government control over the internet, despite a campaign warning that it will lead to widespread censorship.
The bill must now be signed by Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, before becoming law.
Russia’s leading websites – the search engine Yandex, the blogging platform LiveJournal, and the Russian-language Wikipedia – had joined together to warn against adopting the bill. Russian Wikipedia went black on Tuesday in protest at the law and warned that it would “lead to the creation of a Russian analogue to China’s great firewall“.
The bill calls for the creation of a federal website “no” list that would force site owners and internet operators to shut down any site put on it. The bill’s supporters say it is designed to crack down on child pornography, as well as sites that promote drug use and teen suicide.
The Duma, Russia’s parliament, appeared to take some of the concerns of the bill’s critics into account. MPs removed vague language that would allow any website with “bad content” to be shut down, according to Duma deputy Ilya Ponomaryov, an opposition activist who supported the bill. Under the new wording, authorities will only be allowed to shut down sites that contain child pornography, or promotion of drugs or suicide. All other sites would require a court order before being placed on the blacklist.
Yet Russia’s court system is notoriously corrupt and pliant – less than 1% of cases brought before Russian courts result in a not guilty verdict.
Those opposed to Putin have long feared a crackdown on the internet, where opposition discussion and protest organisation have flourished amid a largely state-owned media environment.
“The need to fight child pornography and illegal content are as important for civil society as the support of constitutional principles like freedom of speech and access [to] information,” Yelena Kolmanovskaya, the chief editor of Yandex, wrote in a statement posted on the website on Wednesday. However, she added: “The proposed methods provide a means for possible abuse and raise numerous questions from the side of users and representatives of internet companies.”
The bill’s co-author, Yelena Mizulina, accused critics of belonging to the “paedophilia lobby”.
“The online community initiated the need for adopting this law themselves, that’s why I’m sure not all of the online community is against it – just certain circles that can be associated with the paedophilia lobby,” she said, the Interfax news agency reported.
The bill comes amid what activists have called an unprecedented post-Soviet crackdown on opposition activity. With the Duma due to enter the summer recess at the end of the week, a host of laws tightening civil freedoms are being rushed through.
Last Friday, the Duma gave initial approval to a new libel law that would introduce fines of up to 500,000 roubles (£9,850) and sentences of up to five years in prison. Government critics warn that the bill is another means of crushing dissent.
The Duma is expected to adopt the law by Friday, as well as a new law that would require nongovernmental organisations funded by foreign grants to advertise themselves as “foreign agents”.
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