Global Voices Advocacy » Russia

Russia: Anothr Kemerovo Blogger Sued For Libelling

Alexey Sidorenko — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:45:59 +0000

A criminal case has been started against Kemerovo-based Alexander Sorokin (aka LJ-user commentator40), Echo Moskvy reported [RUS]. Sorokin is accused of libel against Kemerovo governor Aman Tuleev [EN] for the post [RUS] in which he compares Russian regional governors to Latin American dictators. It is the second loud case [EN] of blogger prosecution in this region in 2010.

Russia: The First Case of YouTube Ban

Alexey Sidorenko — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 13:44:39 +0000

YouTube under fire in the Russia's Far East. Photo by mauritsonline

On July 16, 2010, Komsomolsk-on-Amur city court issued a decision [RUS] requested by the city prosecutor. The decision requires a local Internet provider “Rosnet” to block IP-addresses of five websites: lib.rus (the judge meant lib.rus.ec, a Russian Internet library), thelib.ru, www.zhurnal.ru, web.archive.org, and… youtube.com.

The court believes those websites host extremist content (several online copies of “Mein Kampf” and a video “Russia for Russians” that accompanied a skinhead-related song uploaded by a user from Serbia [RUS]) while the provider was accused of “not blocking them.” The court decision says:

…the inspection conducted by the Prosecutor's Office showed that the Internet provider (the defendant) failed to ensure the security of the users of the global network properly. Komsomolsk-on-Amur residents have free access to extremist and terrorist websites that promote ideas of public organizations, contain statements aimed at inciting hatred and hostility towards a group of people based on ethnicity, attitude towards religion, as well as belonging to the authorities, and justification of the terrorist activities prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation.
[…]
in order to restore the violated rights of the citizens and to enforce the current law, access… to the Internet sites … should be limited by adding rules of the IP-filtration of the aforementioned websites to the router.

Marker.ru published [RUS] an interview with prosecutor Vladimir Pakhomov, who said that “a provider is obliged to filter information that goes through its channels to the World Wide Web,” and didn't exclude the possibility of filtering Vkontakte.ru and other social networks.

The court's decision, however, hasn't been enforced yet. The provider managed to appeal [RUS] on time and is waiting for the decision of a higher instance court.

Numerous mistakes (both spelling and factual) in the court decision attracted attention [RUS] of various bloggers, highlighting a low level of computer (and general) literacy of a person who wrote the decision. Besides, the measure of IP-filtering is both expensive and inefficient (for various reasons), argued Rosnet in a detailed press release published on its website. Russian Google said [RUS] the decision might be a serious threat for the development of the Internet in Russia's Far East.

Previously, GV reported on other cases of similar accusations against providers (here, here, and here/a>, and many others that were not documented). Until now, however, prosecutors have been demanding to close only small websites. With YouTube, the technique of content removal/blocking was slightly different. The Russian authorities addressed YouTube directly with demands to delete certain videos, and the service usually complied [RUS].

“Rosnet” cited [RUS] two similar cases that were initiated but lost by the same Prosecutor's Office in April and May 2010. Recently, Sova-center reported on a court decision in Chita region, also in the Far East Region: Chita city court obliged a local provider to block the website of “Russian Zabaikalie” because of the neo-Nazi content. Both Chita and Komsomolsk-on-Amur are within 200-300 kilometers from the border with China, a country with the most severe Internet filtering systems. Besides, Komsomolsk-on-Amur has some of the highest Internet prices [EN] and some of the lowest numbers of social network users among cities with the population of more than 200,000 people.

So what is it? Is it geographical proximity that makes blocking practices so tempting, or a technical backwardness? Or, a general trend towards a nation-wide system of content blocking? Stupidity of the local authorities or the beginning of the Great Russian Firewall?

Both, concludes Anton Nossik, IT entrepreneur and a popular blogger. In his column at snob.ru, where Nossik analyzed [RUS] the unusual expansion of the list of extremist materials [RUS] (which grew from 218 items in 2008 to almost 700 now), he quite cynically writes about such prosecution of “extremism”:

The master plan made it down to the level of executives, who actually didn't have any motivation for ideological control. So the system started working on the order from the bosses… The police and the prosecutor's office got an [overall plan] that foresaw the exposure of extremist materials on the territory they control, virtual or real. … “experts” appeared, who were ready to replicate assessments recognizing as extremist any material they received from their [superiors]. The practice of issuing court decisions also became routine. Novosibirsk region's Federal Security Service was the first one to try out the idea of demanding IP-filtration of banned servers from local providers four years ago […].

[…]

As a result of all this mess, the country got a significant and absurd production line. The federal list of extremist materials, as well as the recent decision to ban YouTube in Komsomolsk-on-Amur are its products. Thousands of police officers, prosecutors and court employees are involved in the work of this production line all over the country. All these people couldn't care less about freedom of speech or about suppressing it, but they all have a plan, and [every three months] they have to report about the completed work. And we have what we have: a pile of absurd and inefficint bans with zero practical result - be it in the fight against extremism or even local limiting of access to the censored works. All this futile activity is being carried out only for appearance's sake, for paperwork. And the main stimulus for the local bureaucrats that could explain the high level of activity in this direction is the extraordinary simplicity of all these procedures, the ease of reporting a successfully-fulfilled job, and no control whatsoever of its usefulness and efficiency from the above.

Nossik concluded that Russia's police “are able to bury any disgusting totalitarian idea,” be it censorship or total surveillance. Although the reality described by Nossik is somewhat true, the case of the first YouTube ban in Russia is the result of a steady and consistent development. Blog or video platforms (like YouTube) are becoming more dangerous for individual bloggers, since the attempts to ban LiveJournal or Facebook after they hosted questionable material are becoming increasingly probable.

Is Russia an Enemy of Internet?

Gregory Asmolov — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 12:56:06 +0000

The degree of freedom on the Russian Internet is an issue for debates. Some put Russia on the same list of “Internet enemies” with China and Iran. Others strongly oppose this kind of generalization and claim that Russian Internet is the most liberal and unrestricted public sphere in the country.

The recent “Internet enemies” report [ENG] by international non-governmental organization “Reporters Without Borders” tried to bring some order in regards to placement of Russia on the Internet freedom scale. The organization placed the country on the list of “Countries under surveillance.” This placement and especially the justification for it by the report’s authors raised discussion and disagreement in Russia.

The original report states [ENG]:

After the takeover by the Kremlin of the audiovisual media early in the Putin era, the Internet became the freest space for discussion and information-sharing in Russia. Yet its dependence is threatened by blogger arrests and prosecutions, and the blocking of independent websites labeled as “extremist.” The Web has also become a first-rate sphere of activity for government propaganda and could become a political control mechanism.

It names a long list of government affiliated activities that should be considered as limitation of Internet freedom. Among those activities is web surveillance system “SORM-2″ that makes possible to monitor online content for security agencies. The reported also noted the fact that some of major social media platforms were bought out by oligarchs with close ties to the government. “Reporters Without Borders” additionally cited the story of blocking oppositional websites by WIMAX Internet provider Yota, cyber attacks against liberal websites and persecutions against bloggers.

But there are some more optimistic statements. The report suggests that “the Internet has become a space in which people can denounce the corruption of Russian officials.” However, it concludes that despite this fact “the impact of these online mobilizations, blogs and new media on Russian society is still relatively limited” and warns that censorship on RuNet (Russian Internet) may increase.

Right after the report was released, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress, asked few Russian Internet experts to comment on the report. Famous blogger and journalist Oleg Kozyrev said [RUS] to RFE/RL:

We in the situation when every blogger can became a subject of a criminal case. But there is no total persecution of bloggers in Russian. There are some episodic strikes on some civil activists. I would split the bloggers situation in two parts: persecution by the government with the help of enforcement agencies and the situation when a blogger falls under administrative or criminal violations because the law did not protect him effectively.

The executive director of “Social networks” agency Denis Terehov opposes [RUS] the idea of censorship on RuNet:

What kind of censorship we can talk about when there are 60 mln accounts on Vkontakte.ru, 50 mln accounts on Odnoklassniki.ru and two mln online journals on Livejournal.com? Who prevents someone from writing? We are not in China where they censor Google. We are not in Kazakhstan where they turned off Livejournal.com. Nobody forbids anyone to write and express his position.

The head of “Freedom of Speech Protection Foundation” Aleksey Simonov emphasizes [RUS] the difference between Internet and Russian traditional media where editors and reporters know in advance what they are not allowed to say:

In regards to Internet, there can't be any censorship. Censorship is preliminary analysis before the process of publication. But one cannot review a blog in advance, can one? The issue is not in preventing something to be published but in punishing someone for something that has been already published. And it is called differently.

However, beyond the discussion if the Russian Internet is censored or not, the way that this claim was explained by the “Internet Enemies” report raised some debates and discussion. Alexander Amzin, Internet expert for the major Russian online news agency Lenta.ru wrote an article that argued with most of facts that were included in the Russian chapter of the “Reporters without Borders” report.

Amzin writes [RUS]

These six pages are the most amazing collection of myths and legends about RuNet for last few years.

According to Amzin, some of the facts in the report are old news. For instance, SORM-2 system works since 2000 and there are no clear evidences that it caused any repressive actions. Moreover, Amzin reminds that most of countries in the world have some systems for traffic monitoring. Other old news a purchase of Livejournal.com by a Russian oligarch with some ties to the Kremlin. There also no clear evidences that it had any impact on freedom of expression on this most popular blogging platform in the country.

Amzin also reminds that the blocking of websites by Yota provider included governmental websites. He notes that the further development of this incident showed that this block was not censorship but a technical problem. The Lenta.ru expert points out that Vadim Charushev who was confined against his will in a psychiatric hospital wasn’t the creator of Vkontakte.ru social networks, as the report claims, but a social networking activist. Amzin also disagrees with the claim that Russian law authorized the government to intercept Web data without a prior court order.

The most outrage of Amzin was caused by the report's statement about a group called the “Brigade” that includes people who leave pro-government comments (some of them are allegedly doing it for money).

Unfortunately, no one explained to experts from “Reporters Without borders” that “the brigade” is an urban legend of RuNet. People say that every popular blogger has a curator in security organizations. People say that every patriot gets salary. People say that authorities organize DDoS attacks against oppositional web servers. Those are all rumors from the same box. To approach it in a critical way you can just use the Hanlon's Razor («Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity» ).

Amzin also says that the claim that online mobilization is limited on RuNet ignores the reality. However, there is one point the Russian expert agrees on:

One can get an impression that the report includes only mistake. That is not true. There is a serious part of this document that takes one page. It is a list of bloggers who were a subject for criminal prosecution for their opinion or became subjects of criminal cases. Indeed, bloggers do go to jail and it’s very bad.

The article by Amzin also raised a discussion among RuNet users. Some of them claimed that Amzin himself demonstrates exaggerated patriotism and mentioned very recent stories that raised lack of confidence in RuNet zone including shutting down of Torrents.ru and Ifolder.ru websites. One can also recall the case of Yandex blog rating closure [ENG] that removed one of the most powerful platforms for alternative agenda setting on RuNet.

One of the comments to Amzin's criticism, however, opposes [RUS] the claim that the “Brigade” is just an urban legend:

There are [online] trolls. All sites where people discuss our own crap are flooded with stupid comments of one type with the purpose to water down the discussion to banal insults. And there is a salary paid for it. And there are curators. Author, are you one of them? The hysterical attempt to list the entire mistake from the “Internet enemies” report is portrayed as a proof for lack of objectivity of the whole chapter. Does the author believe that “Reporter Without Borders” are not able to monitor information about RuNet?

The controversy around Russian chapter of “Internet enemies” report emphasizes the high degree of complexity of the reality in the Russian segment of the Internet. The questions of government’s involvement nature, censorship and limiting freedom of speech have no simple answer. RuNet has to be under surveillance. Including Russia in the list of countries that should raise concerns is certainly justified. But it also requires careful approach that can distinguish myth form facts, try to investigate the complexity, and avoid “black and white” approach that categorizes some of processes as evidences for repressive actions by government.

Russia: Website Closed By Police Order

Alexey Sidorenko — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:54:55 +0000

20marta.ru, an opposition website dedicated to the “Day of Anger” held on March 20, was closed by police after just one day of functioning, kasparov.ru reported. According to the source, the police have sent the letter informing that the website is closed due to inciting anti-government sentiment.

Russia: Blogger Arrested For Pneumonic Plague Rumors

Alexey Sidorenko — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:08:03 +0000

Ivan Peregorodiev, a 22-year-old medical student and blogger, has been arrested on December 3 for spreading rumors about pneumonic plague in the city of Saratov. Authorities accused him of disseminating false information related to an act of terrorism. On December 2, the Russian bloggers actively discussed allegations that a large population of Saratov had been infected with H1N1 virus. The rumors said that authorities concealed many fatalities caused by the swine flu and the whole city was about to be closed for quarantine [RUS]. Later, people started talking about alleged cases of pneumonic plague blaming them on a local “anti-plague” research institute. The situation became so serious that Saratov Governor Pavel Ipatov [ENG] interrupted his visit to Belarus and returned to the city to deal with public outcry. Citing a post from a Russian social news Web site, Ivan Peregorodiev, aka lj-user iperegorodiev (his account is currently suspended), challenged an official statement that dismissed any possibility of pneumonic plague:

Turns out we may have a plague. “The results of the autopsy of people that died of swine flu - that became publicly available - caused panic. According to witnesses, the results of lung destruction resembled the cases of pneumonic plague described in medical literature.” (http://smi2.ru/saratoff/c243648) [RUS] Do our authorities tell the truth when they dismiss this information? Today they plan to spray disinfectant solution against pneumonic plague from helicopters… P.S. And here is another one http://www.epidemiolog.ru/prof/index.php?SECTION_ID=&ELEMENT_ID=3868 [RUS]

He followed up with another post just hours after the first one:

What is going on? Gentlemen, here is the latest news from an epidemic station: helicopters are loaded with disinfectant solution. P.S. Plots of American movies about the Apocalypse become reality.

The city officials denied any rumors about the plague but confirmed 17 fatal cases of swine flu. The authorities also admitted that city hospitals were overcrowded and Saratov's budget did not have enough money to purchase H1N1 vaccine. Some bloggers [RUS] found Peregorodiev's message similar to the one that escalated the swine flu panic in Ukraine a month ago. Like in the case with Saratov, the rumors in Ukraine also had “helicopters spraying disinfectant solution.” The Saratov Prosecutor's Office quickly announced [RUS] its plans to find disseminators of the rumors and Ivan Peregorodiev became the first to be arrested. He was accused of transmitting a “deliberately false information related to an act of terrorism” (Article 207 of the Russian Criminal Code). The Prosecutor's Office did not explain how the information in Peregorodiev's blog posts and the pneumonic plague rumors were related to any act of terrorism. The Institute for Collective Action, a Russian non-profit organization, started a campaign [RUS] to free Peregorodiev. Activists argue that, by questioning an official statement of Saratov officials, the blogger was exercising his right to the freedom of speech.

UPD: Ivan was released from jail on December 4th but is still under suspicion of committing a crime, reports Novaya Gazeta.

Russia: Tatarstan Blogger Sentenced to Almost 2 Years in Penal Colony

Alexey Sidorenko — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:05:55 +0000

On Nov. 26, the Kirov district court of Kazan, which is the capital of the Republic of Tartastan, convicted Irek Murtazin, a 45-year-old journalist and blogger, of defamation and incitement to hatred, reports Gazeta.ru [RUS]. The court sentenced Murtazin to one year and nine months of imprisonment in a penal colony (a form of imprisonment where convicts live not in a jail but in a special colony for prisoners).

About a year ago, in Dec. 2008, Murtazin - former head of Shaimiev's press service and currently an opposition blogger, aka lj-user irek-murtazin [RUS] - was accused of defamation against Mintimir Shaimiev, President of Tatarstan. On Sept. 12, 2008, Murtazin published a post in which he mentioned a piece of gossip about Shaimiev's death. He wrote [RUS]:

Пришла страшная весть…
…на 72-ом году жизни, во время отдыха в Турции (в Кемере) скоропостижно скончался Минтимер Шарипович Шаймиев.
Честно говоря – не верится. Точнее, не хочется верить. Потому что, если это правда, то начнется такая свара, такая нешуточная борьба за то, чтобы занять освободившееся кресло, что чубы у холопов будут трещать и вдоль и поперек. И именно из-за подобных перспектив, ближайшее окружение Минтимера Шариповича попытается скрыть эту информацию. Чтобы успеть перегруппироваться (вплоть до скоропостижной эвакуации из страны). Именно поэтому официальная информация, думаю, будет не раньше чем через неделю.

A horrible piece of news came in…
…Mintimir Sharipovich Shaimiev suddenly died on the 72nd year of life, while on vacation in Turkey (Kemer).
Frankly speaking - I can't believe it. To be precise - I don't want to believe it. Because, if it's true, then there will be such a mess, such a serious struggle to get into the vacant seat, that the peasants' forelocks will be cracking here and there. And it's because of these prospects that Shaimiev's closest circle will try to conceal this information. To win time to regroup (or even to leave the country). This is why, the official information, I think, will appear not earlier than in a week.

The rumor of Shaimiev's death was disproven on the same day, but the shares of the oil company allegedly owned by the representatives of the so-called “Shaimiev clan” dropped significantly, says Lenta.ru [RUS]. In Dec. 2008, Murtazin was officially accused of defamation and infringement upon personal inviolability of Shaimiev (It is important to note that the court acquitted Murtazin only on this latter charge).

The trial lasted almost a year, and prosecution kept adding new accusations, blaming Murtazin for defamation and libel not only on his blog, but also in Murtazin's book “Mintimir Shaimiev: The Last President of Tatarstan. Part 1″ as well as in his news bulletin “Our Kazan News” (”Наши казанские вести,” which Murtazin described [RUS] in Oct. 2008 as a “print digest” of his LiveJournal blog).

Murtazin said he didn't agree with the verdict and would file an appeal.

Photographs from the trial are available here.

***

Irek Murtazin's bio (according to Anticompromat.org)

Born in 1964 in Bogatye Saby settlement, Tatarstan
1981-1990 - served in the Soviet Army, also in GRU (military intelligence unit)
1985 - graduated from the Kazan Higher Tank College
1990-1991 - assistant to the legislator Vladimir Lopatin
1995 - graduated from the Moscow Government Law Academy
1991-1995 - editor-in-chief of newspapers “Russian North” and “Gubernskie Vesti”
1993-1995 - editor-in-chief of TV-7, a local TV channel in Vologda
1995-1999 - bureau chief of the VGTRK (the largest state-owned TV company) in Kazan
1999-2002 - head of the press service of the President of Tatarstan
2002-2003 - head of TV channel “Tatarstan”
2003-2004 - head of VGTRK's Minsk, Belarus, bureau
2006-2007 - member of the regional branch of A Just Russia party in Tatarstan
2008-2009 -publisher and editor-in-chief of the news bulletin “Our Kazan News” (printed outside Tatarstan in Cheboksary, Republic of Chuvashia)

Founder and webmaster of Ingush opposition website killed

Sami Ben Gharbia — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:59:03 +0000

The founder and webmaster of the Ingush opposition news website Ingushetiya.Ru, Magomed Yevloyev, was killed while in police custody. His website reported that Magomed was shot in the head after being arrested by the Ingush authorities on his arrival at Nazran (Magas) airport. He has passed away in hospital.

The president of Ingushetiya, Murat Zyazikov, was on the same flight. At the airport Zyazikov ordered the police to arrest Yevloev, and he was put in a police car. Yevloev’s body was then delivered to the republican hospital in Nazran, now with a bullet also in his head.

Magomed is a prominent opponent of the pro-Kremlin president of Ingushetiam, Murat Zyazikov. According to the Miami Herald, Yevloyev has angered Russia with criticism of police treatment of civilians in the region. “A court in June ordered him to shut his site on charges of spreading “extremist” statements, but it reappeared under a different name.“

Internet and South Ossetia Crisis

Renata Avila — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:45:56 +0000

During the South Ossetia crisis, many people looked at the most popular Georgian pages to gather information about the situation. Big surprise, sites like the popular forum.ge or liberty.ge were not working and official sites were blocked or hacked.

Press quickly jumped into conclusions saying that Russia was attacking Georgia both on the ground and on-line and that was the first cyberwar with a government attacking other also on the Internet, probably by paid “hackers” working for them, when they found out that the President site president.gov.ge and other official sites were blocked. But as expert Gadi Evron said a couple of days after it started on his article Internet attacks against Georgian Websites:

1. There are botnet attacks against .ge websites.
2. These attacks affect the .ge Internet infrastructure, but it's reachable.
3. It doesn't seem Internet infrastructure is directly attacked.
4. Every other political tension in the past 10 years, from a comic of the Prophet Muhammad to the war in Iraq, were followed by online supporters attacking targets which seem affiliated with the opposing side, and vise-versa.

Blurring borders blog has a point on it:

A new type of narrative is taking hold among the coverage of the military conflict between Russia and Georgia. A number of sites are writing about the “cyberwarfare” being waged by pro-Russian forces against the Georgian government. It seems that, like Estonia a year ago, entities evoking the ire of Russia must be forced to combat widespread botnet-based DDoS attacks. I think there is little doubt that such occurrences will be increasingly part of real-world conflicts, but people are rushing into framing this as warfare, which will only lead to military-based reactions - something I fear.

A new, anonymous, ubiquitous enemy to fight was the picture by mainstream media. Warfare and hack attacks are frequently popular items, mostly because it’s a statement that almost always guarantees a reaction. And if it is combines with an armed conflict with Russia it will get additional attention. But it is important to take a second look on it.

“An army of ones and zeroes” was the title of an article by Eugeny Morozov, where he provides details on the attacks and all the information available to any user on the web interested in download the software and attack georgian sites. He tested it by himself and shared the experience:

Not knowing exactly how to sign up for a cyberwar, I started with an extensive survey of the Russian blogosphere. My first anonymous mentor, as I learned from this blog post, became frustrated with the complexity of other cyberwarfare techniques used in this campaign and developed a simpler and lighter “for dummies” alternative. All I needed to do was to save a copy of a certain Web page to my hard drive and then open it in my browser. I was warned that the page wouldn't work with Internet Explorer but did well with Firefox and Opera. (Get with the program, Microsoft!) Once accessed, the page would load thumbnailed versions of a dozen key Georgian Web sites in a single window. All I had to do was set the page to automatically update every three to five seconds. Voilà: My browser was now sending thousands of queries to the most important Georgian sites, helping to overload them, and it had taken me only two to three minutes to set up.

Ethan Zuckrman provides a complete analysis of what he called “Misunderstanding Cyberwar“:

The rhetoric of “cyberwarfare” has a reassuring implication: we understand how to fight wars, so surely we can win a cyberwar. Unfortunately, the truth is more complicated. There’s no magic “cyberspace command” solution the USAF can unleash to defeat a botnet. The administrators trying to bring Georgian webservers back online are doing precisely what any sysadmin does confronted with a DDoS - they are blocking traffic from the IP addresses that are launching the attacks, and sharing these blocklists with administrators confronting the same problems. If they can block addresses more quickly than the attackers can recruit more participants, they’ll win. This strategy is known by the complex technical term “Whack-a-Mole”, and it’s roughly as frustrating as the fairground game of the same name.

Sometimes hacker world is unfamiliar for many of Internet users, even more complex for those that never use the internet (most of the World population). In Georgia, for example, only 7% of the population have access. But certainly almost all the population have access to t.v. and radio news that were repeating the same message: Internet in Georgia under attack, linked to the intervention.

Digital Natives Blog provides an analysis on the attacks on “Cyberwar and Non State Actors” and also discussed the importance of “digital citizenship”:

Digital citizenship is a tricky business - online, it’s not entirely clear where one’s loyalties do or should lie. What of international human rights activists whose own governments spy on them? Or software entrepreneurs whose products are adopted by repressive governments? It may simply be the case that with the near-zero cost of moving ideas around the world, we must get used to our ideas being carried forward and adopted by those with whom we disagree or even find abhorrent. What of responsibility, then? I think our responsibilities online ultimately are no more or less than our responsibilities offline - be conscious of our actions and how they effect others, and always seek to treat others justly.

After the first headlines some experts said that it might be a grassroots global reaction, a protest, an electronic riot. But the first headlines raised concerns on the security divisions around the world, Cyberwar is a strong word with heavy political consequences all around that can shape the future of security measures and intervention of the Internet.

Now the debate among experts monitoring the situation such as Info War Monitor is:

were the attacks in cyberspace part of deliberately planned campaign, or did they happen spontaneously, inspired by events?

For hacktivists code is a form of speech, and their actions from grassroots are an expression of civil disobedience, an effective way to be heard, so their message will not be lost, their way to engage in political participation, to make political statements, something not analyzed in the first headlines by the press. And their hacks are political expressions, not hurting human beings but systems. Of concern of activist and hacktivists has to be the impact of information, misinformation and lack of information during humanitarian crisis.
People might react in different ways to a headline, and public opinion (lacking technology knowledge) can support in the future strong measures to control the Internet if media is not careful enough and pictures attacks as serious threats to global security. It might have an ugly impact to consider hacker actions an “act of aggression”, a “crime against peace”.

And at the end of the day, as as “The Wars virtual dimension” said:

while the political and informational wars are taking place, over there - in South Ossetia, in Georgia - people are dying and suffering. […].

Perhaps it is time to start thinking about internet tools to help those in the middle, as good net citizens and show media and public opinion the huge potential of Internet to do good.

Russia: One Year in Prison for Blog Comment

Veronica Khokhlova — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:54:13 +0000

On July 7, Savva Terentyev, 22, a Russian blogger and musician from Syktyvkar, received a one-year suspended jail sentence for a comment (RUS) he posted on Feb. 15, 2007, on the blog of a local journalist Boris Suranov.

Here is a rough translation of the comment:

I hate cops [menty], [swear word omitted]

I don't agree with the thesis that “policemen still have the mentality of a repressive stick in the hands of the powers that be.” First, they are cops [menty, not militsionery, a less respectful way to refer to police]. Second, their mentality isn't still here. It's simply ineradicable. Once a musor [a synonym for ment; non-slang meaning of the word is “trash”], always a musor, even in Africa. Those who become cops [menty] - rednecks and thugs - are the dumbest and least educated representatives of the live/animal world. Would be great if there was an oven, similar to those in Auschwitz, in the center of every Russian city, at the main square (in Syktyvkar, right in the center of Stefanovskaya, where the New Year's tree stands, so that everyone could see), and there'd be a daily ceremony - or, even better, twice a day (at noon and midnight, for example) - of burning a dishonest cop [ment] there. The people would be doing the burning. This would be the first step towards cleansing the society of the dirt that the thuggish cops are.

The court found Terentyev guilty of inciting enmity and publicly humiliating representatives of a social group (Article 282, part 1 of the Russian Federation's Criminal Code).

Here is a rough translation of a tiny part of the 12-page “guilty” verdict (RUS), posted by one of the defense witnesses, LJ user mezak, on his blog (the original of the passage below is on p. 11; the post also has photos of Terentyev, his defense team, and the judge reading the verdict; there are 376 comments to the post so far):

[…] Defendant Terentyev S.S. [Savva Sergeyevich], by means of the language, by having a negative impact on the public opinion and mood, and by aiming to incite social enmity and hatred, to escalate social conflict, to sharpen social contradictions, to awaken base instincts in people, contrasted the people and police officers, calling to [their] physical annihilation by the people. The text does not allow for ambiguous understanding and interpretation of [its] content and meaning, because it should be understandable to any average native speaker of Russian who has basic oral and written language skills. […]

LJ user sholademi re-posted the verdict on his blog and added this note (RUS) at the end of his entry:

Hmm, it has to be noted that the court's verdict contains many orthographic mistakes. This, in addition to the legal side of the case (namely, the questionable linguistic analysis). In short, it's getting crazier and crazier.

In another post, LJ user sholademi posted a 5-question survey (RUS), explaining that Terentyev's defense team was planning to appeal the blogger's sentence and, among other things, would like to “find out how Savva Terentyev's case is going to affect the discussion environment in the Russian blogosphere.” Below are the survey's results so far:

1. Before Savva Terentyev's case, were there many LJ bloggers who allowed themselves to speak harshly of law enforcement and other state institutions and officials?

a. Many bloggers made such statements - 842 (75.4%)

b. Only some bloggers made such statements - 233 (20.9%)

c. I've never encountered such statements on blogs - 41 (3.7%)

2. Before the verdict on Savva Terentyev's case, how often did you encounter harsh statements about law enforcement and other state institutions and officials on your friends feed?

а. Such statements were pretty frequent on my friends feed - 664 (59.7%)

b. Such statements were pretty rare on my friends feed - 347 (31.2%)

c. Such statements were never present on my friends feed - 102 (9.2%)

3. If the verdict on Savva Terentyev's case comes into force, how will it affect the number of bloggers who would allow themselves to make harsh statements about law enforcement and other state institutions and officials in open posts and comments?

a. Their numbers will grow significantly - 193 (17.4%)

b. Their numbers will grow, but not significantly - 239 (21.6%)

c. Their numbers will decrease, but not significantly - 550 (49.6%)

d. Their numbers will decrease significantly - 126 (11.4%)

4. If the verdict on Savva Terentyev's case comes into force, how will it affect the number of bloggers who would allow themselves to make harsh statements about law enforcement and other state institutions and officials in locked (friends-only) posts?

a. Their numbers will grow significantly - 386 (34.9%)

b. Their numbers will grow, but not significantly - 470 (42.5%)

c. Their numbers will decrease, but not significantly - 219 (19.8%)

d. Their numbers will decrease significantly - 31 (2.8%)

5. Do you consider Savva Terentyev's sentence fair?

a. I consider it fair - 73 (6.5%)

b. I consider it unfair, as it is too soft - 12 (1.1%)

c. I consider it unfair, as it is too harsh - 71 (6.3%)

d. I consider it unfair in principle, because, in my opinion, Savva did not commit a crime - 963 (86.1%)

On July 14, Savva Terentyev and his lawyer held a press conference in Moscow (see photo of Terentyev at LJ user mezak's blog). LJ user dolboeb - Anton Nossik, the self-described “Social Media Evangelist at SUP,” the online media company that owns LiveJournal.com - announced the event on his blog and added this note (RUS) at the end of his post:

[…] Each month, 10-12 million comments appear in the Cyrillic LJ (10.5 million in June, 130.5 million in the past 12 months). On the average, every post gets 3.7 comments. [The police unit that initiated Savva Terentyev's case] has plenty of work ahead (unless, of course, they've got nothing else to busy themselves with).

At the press conference, LJ user dolboeb reiterated his point (RUS, link to an article in Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper for which Anna Politkovskaya used to write):

[…] Of course, spending 15 minutes on the web and finding a criminal is a lot more convenient than running around the dark, narrow streets with a gun. As a taxpayer, I'm not satisfied with this situation. […]

Russian LiveJournal blogger could face three-year sentence

Sami Ben Gharbia — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 02:24:47 +0000

The 23-year old Russian blogger, Dmitry Shirinkin, who wrote a fiction story on his blog inspired by the Virginia Tech shooting, could face up to three years in prison (Please read the whole story on Global Voices). Dmitry Shirinkin was running a LiveJournal blog under the title tetraox and wrote about buying a gun and killing number of people in one of the city's colleges. He is being accused of “falsely warning of a terror threat.”

“The Prosecutor's Office analysed Dmitry's blog and concluded he had a desire to shoot dead a dozen people,” Russia Today reported. However, Shirinkin's defense is requesting a language analyst to give his expert opinion on the controversial text. The trial has been adjourned to September 20th.

In an interview with Russia Today (watch the video above), Shirinkin said “I didn’t expect that a short writing piece could provoke such reaction from the security services. They interrogated me asking where my gun was, but I'd never had one.”

According to Russia Today, the blog made Dmitry popular even before the trial as he was awarded the title of the best blogger in the region. On the other hand, Russian bloggers are concerned since Shirinkin's case might set a bad precedent for the country's Internet users.

Another Russian Livejournal blogger is also facing a two-year prison sentence or a fine of 100,000-ruble ($4,000) for “inciting hate” against police. According to Komi regional prosecutor, the allegedly offending message- which has been deleted from the site - of the 21-year old Savva Terentyev contains “a direct call aimed at inciting hatred or hostility, as well as harming the dignity of … a particular social group: policemen.“