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Deutsch: Die neuesten Versuche der russischen Regierung das Internet zu zensier...

Especially during the period before and immediately after the Russian parliamentary elections of 4 December 2011, government censorship attacked not only traditional media, but also the Internet, which plays now a very important role in the political debate in Russia with more than 51 million users.

An order from the Federal Security Service (FSB) asked social network Vkontakte, with more than 5 million Russian users, to block the websites of seven groups calling for demonstrations during the election days. As the network refused to obey, Pavel Durov, its founder and director general, was summoned to the Saint Petersburg prosecutor's office.

"This unreasonable order aims to deprive Internet users of the freedom of expression, opinion and assembly. The authorities are using prevention of violence as a pretext for reinforcing control of the Internet," Reporters Without Borders said.

The Ria Novosti news agency was also allegedly ordered to clear its website of any foreign news reports critical of Putin. Grigory Okhotin, recently resigned from Inosmi, a Ria Novosti offshoot translating foreign media articles into Russian and posting them on its website, stated on 26 November that he had received an internal email from the head of the Internet department asking all employees "not to post any article hostile to Putin and United Russia on the site" during the week prior to the elections.

Also, reporters, photographers and bloggers that are critical to the government were arrested either in the days previous to the elections or while peacefully protesting in Moscow against the results of the parliamentary elections and the irregularities that accompanied the polling.

Even regional forums were targeted. On 15 November, the police went to the web-hosting company Agava Hosting and seized the server of Kostroma Jedis, the region's most popular forum with 12 000 daily visitors, for having posted two satirical videos criticizing governor Igor Slyunyayev.

Besides these attempts to stop protests directly, the Government also used cyber attacks against blogs and Twitter accounts which have been flooded with pro-government messages. Furthermore, several websites that are critical of the government were blocked by Distributed Denial of Service attacks before and during the elections. For instance, LiveJournal, a blog platform hosting many anti-government blogs, was made inaccessible for three days starting with 1 December.

Russia is classified as a "country under surveillance" in the latest Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, and is part of the "Enemies of the Internet" list in its latest report.

Vkontakte social network targeted by security services (9.12.2011)
http://en.rsf.org/russia-journalists-and-bloggers-arrested-06-12-2011,...

Political debate disrupted by cyber-attacks and arrests (5.12.2011)
http://en.rsf.org/russie-government-tightens-control-of-all-01-12-2011...

Russia: Election Day DDoS-alypse (5.12.2011)
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/12/05/russia-election-day-ddos-alyp...

Russia: The Revolt of "Net Hamsters" (5.12.2011)
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/12/05/russia-the-revolt-of-net-hams...