The court ordered the Russian communications watchdog to name Emilia Slabunova’s publications containing “false information of the special military operation in Ukraine” that led to blocking of her page on a popular social media
Press Release, 14.09.2022
Photo: Emilia Slabunova / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 13 September, the Petrozavodsk City Court held a hearing to consider the complaint of Emilia Slabunova, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of Karelia and ex Chair of Yabloko, about the inaction of the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Communications, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) in connection with the blocking of her page in the popular social media Vkontakte.
Roskomnadzor refused to provide Slabunova with information about what materials contained “inaccurate socially significant information about the course of a special military operation on the territory of Ukraine”, due to which Slabunova’s page was blocked. In addition, the watchdog did not remove the block from the page even after Slabunova removed these materials. Such actions, or rather inaction, contradict the law “On Information, Information Technologies and Protection of Information”.
The hearing lasted almost two hours. The representatives of the Public Prosecutor General’s Office and Roskomnadzor participated online, however none of the departments was able to answer what materials on the politician’s page led to blocking – the representatives forwarded this question to each other.
The court decided to involve the administration of the Vkontakte social media as a third party. In addition, Roskomnadzor must provide screenshots of the materials that caused the blocking.
Emilia Slabunova noted that she was ready to go through all judicial instances and explained why the cancellation of the blocking of the page on Vkontakte was so important for her: the page is the only way to inform a wide range of voters about her activities, because the website of the Legislative Assembly ignored both the Yabloko party and Slabunova.
“The next meeting will take place on 28 September. There is hope that I will finally find out which of my posts on 25 February made them block my account,” Emilia Slabunova commented on the interim results.
EMILIA SLABUNOVA
is member of the Federal Political Committee of the Yabloko party, Chair of Yabloko in 2015-2019.
Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Karelia.
Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Honoured Teacher of Russia
Posted: September 14th, 2022 under Freedom of Speech, Human Rights, Russia-Ukraine relations, The Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of Karelia, Yabloko's Regional Branches, Без рубрики.