Roskomnadzor demands from "Bukvy" to take down news of "military conscription" in Crimea

Photo credit: "Bukvy"

Russian media watchdog (Roskomnadzor) has demanded from Ukrainian online publication “Bukvy” to take down the news about a "military conscription" in the Russian-occupied Crimea. The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) sent such notification to “Bukvy” over the news item "The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry is demanding that the Russian Federation cancel the call-up for military service in the Crimea", published on October 3, 2017, as “Bukvv” reported.

The news reported that the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded from Russia to cancel the call-up for military service in Crimea and Sevastopol.

Roskomnadzor announced that this publication of "Bukvy" was included in the "Unified Register of Domain Names, indexes of pages of sites on the Internet and network addresses that allow to identify sites on the Internet that contain information that is prohibited in the Russian Federation."

The entry in the register was due to the fact that the news "Bukvy" allegedly "contained some reports, the dissemination of which in the Russian Federation is prohibited by a court decision" (based on the decision of the occupying "Kyiv District Court" of Simferopol).

Roskomnadzor demands that the publication of "Bukvy" "immediately take measures to take down" the news and threatens to "block it." In case of "refusal or inaction of the owner of the site on the Internet, the hosting provider is obliged to restrict access to such site on the Internet within 24 hours of receiving this notice."

"If the hosting provider and (or) the site owner does not take measures to take down the prohibited information and (or) restrict access to the site on the Internet, it will be decided to enter in a single register a network address that allows to identify the site on the Internet which has the information, the dissemination of which is prohibited in the Russian Federation, and access to it will be limited, "- said Roskomnadzor.

If the edition complies with that demand, Roskomnadzor promises to remove information about "Bukvy" from the "Unified Register of Domain Names".

The editors of "Bukvv" emphasize that they do not intend to take down the news.

As IMI reported, on July 12, the Crimean Human Rights Group claimed that their website was blocked in the Russian-occupied Crimea due to the publications about illegal military conscription on the peninsula.