Website of the Crimean Human Rights Group was blocked on the peninsula: now access to the resource is blocked, at a minimum, in Simferopol, Sudak, Lenino, Kerch, Krasnoperekopsk and Bakhchisaray Districts.
As CHRG reports, in 2020 and 2021 at least 20 decisions were made that prohibited articles of the Crimean Human Rights Group “to be disseminated in the territory of the Russian Federation”. All publications concern unlawful drafting in the army in Crimea.
In all cases lawsuits against CHRG about prohibition of information were submitted to “courts” by the representatives of the military prosecutor’s office.
All the decisions state that the information of human rights defenders “shakes the foundations of constitutional order of the RF, creates pre-conditions for violation of the federative framework of the country, integrity and inviolability of its territory”, as, in the opinion of Russian courts, “city with federal status Sevastopol and Republic of Crimea, while being the constituent entities of the RF, are included in the federative framework of the RF and constitute an integral basis of constitutional order of the state, and calling the citizens to military service, including those living within the territory of Russian entities, is one of the ways to manning of the Armed Forces of the RF, which ensures integrity and inviolability of the territory of the state”.
Articles of CHRG are being recognized forbidden for dissemination and the decisions are sent to the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) for inclusion of the website into the Unified Register of Domain Names, Uniform Resource Locators in the Information-Telecommunication Network Internet and Network Addresses that Enable Identification of Websites in Information-Telecommunication Network Internet that Contain Information Forbidden to Be Disseminated in the Russian Federation”.
Since 2018, CHRG has received over 50 notices from Roskomnadzor about inclusion of the articles at the organization’s website into the register of information forbidden in the RF.
“The occupants do everything possible to cover up those war crimes from the Crimeans, which are committed by the Russian authorities in Crimea, in order for people to know as less as possible about these violations and court decisions that have nothing to do with justice appear.
On the basis that Russian prosecutors and judges did not like several texts on CHRG’s website, Roskomnadzor made a decision to block the entire information resource. Such unwarranted blocking of CHRG’s website limits access of the Crimeans to a large amount of information about human rights protection. Against the background of the general tendency of increased blocking of access to independent media in Crimea, blocking of new resources indicates tightening of the Kremlin’s policy in the informational area. All those responsible for such actions must be properly punished”, media coordinator of CHRG Irina Sedova believes.
According to the Chairman of the Board of the Crimean Human Rights Group Olga Skripnik, blocking of the website is another vivid example of the Russian policy aimed at informational isolation of Crimea.
“Our website has for many years now been informing not only about military crimes of the RF in Crimea, but also about the repeated human rights violations. We used to tell about how Russia covered up real facts about the situation with the pandemic, how it exposed people to a real threat of catching coronavirus, how it used the education system for militarization of Crimean children and many other things. This information is important for the Crimeans themselves. However, Russia tries to deprive them of access to such information. Moreover, the situation with our website is a vivid illustration of the fact that the law of the RF has for a long time now been a tool for limitation of work of human right protectors. According to the court decisions, our information about human rights protection “undermines security and constitutional order” of the entire Russia”, the human rights advocate stated.
