Posted on 03/15/2014 2:15:33 PM PDT by Grzegorz 246
Russia's government has escalated its use of its Internet censorship law to target news sites, bloggers, and politicians under the slimmest excuse of preventing unauthorized protests and enforcing house arrest regulations. Today, the country's ISPs have received orders to block a list of major news sites and system administrators have been instructed to take the servers providing the content offline.
The banned sites include the online newspaper Grani, Garry Kasparov's opposition information site kasparov.ru, the livejournal of popular anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny, and even the web pages of Ekho Moskvy, a radio station which is majority owned by the state-run Gazprom, and whose independent editor was ousted last month and replaced with a more government-friendly director.
The list of newly prohibited sites was published earlier today by Russia's Prosecutor General, which announced that the news sites had been "entered into the single register of banned information" after "calls for participation in unauthorized rallies." Navalny's livejournal was apparently added to the register in response to the conditions of his current house arrest, which include a personal prohibition on accessing the Internet.
Russia enacted its first law permitting official government censorship of the Internet in 2012, when it was claimed its register would primarily be used to combat child pornography, drug use, and material promoting suicide.
Mig Greengard, assistant to Mr. Kasparov, reported that Kasparov.ru's administrators had been contacted by government officials via letter, requesting that they shut down their servers directly. Though it may not be reachable from some Russian ISPs, Kasparov's website is currently still up, as is Navalny's blog and Ekho Moskvy. Grani's site, at present, shows a single message stating the news site is "blocked at the request of the Prosecutor General."
This should come as no surprise. Putin is going to use whatever means he needs to force the outcome he wants. He’s ruthless, cunning, and cruel. Strangely, these traits appeal to certain people, some of whom consider them traits of a strong leader rather than a despot. He may succeed today and tomorrow, but he’s planted the seeds that will change the whole world’s view of Russia and how the world will react to him.
But... but ... he must be a great guy; he hates homos, after all.
I bet they all were just homo dating sites !!11
(shirtless Putin on a pony coming soon)
That in itself is not strange. Read Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, written in partial response to the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, as just one example. Until I read it, I was under the naive, American, and very much mistaken belief that most people aspire to freedom. Nope. About half of the people in this world are perfectly fine with totalitarianism as long as it means good order and their needs are taken care of, however poorly. They're children, and they want to keep sucking their thumbs.
What is strange, is that there are many people on FR who believe this makes a good leader -- at least in Pooty-Poots case. That is strange indeed, unless [and I'm sure it's true of several of them] that they're here to spread Dezinformatsia.
This is un-bear-able.
What with all the oxen getting gored because Barack is lollygagging at the wheel, more and more people realize they’d be fools to go with Democrat the next time around.
I don’t want a totalitarianism leader, but I wish Obama had half the backbone Putin has - at least on the world state.
He is plenty tough when it comes to destroying the American economy, but that’s about it.
I read it so many years ago that I’d forgotten the theme. Erich Fromm wrote a book, too, ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM with a similar insight. Believing that Putin can take freedom away and provide order and Christianity is just foolish, like thinking Lenin could have all of the power and there would evolve a just world. Stupid.
America got the head start it did because of gospel power.
Russia of the tsars was nominally Christian — but just nominally. They believed in a special occasion God not an everyday God.
America too will go into thumb sucking mode unless there is another gospel revolution, and willing evangelizers will be part of that.
Independent sites? That’s what THEY want you to think. The reality is that the NWO/CFR/Bankers/Rothschilds/Monsanto have been secretly funneling money into previously unknown Neo-Nazi groups since the foundation of the Internet to create and bring traffic to seemingly independent sites which are actually under the thumb of the Bilderbergs, who are intent on their world tyranny.
The cabal of global financial elites, headed by George Soros, have had their neo-Nazi pawns deliberately leave cunningly hidden backdoors in all their computer systems, allowing the NWO and Soros to gain access whenever they want. This allows them to propagate a variety of ‘news’ and ‘opinion’ that keeps you from worrying about their plans for world domination.
These sites have indeed been of great use for the globalist agenda, aiding Soros and his NWO/CFR/Rothchilds cabal in giving the false impression that people are not happy with the anti-globalist Yanukovych and their archnemesis Putin the Shirtless. They brought out thousands of neo-Nazis armed with sniper rifles out onto the streets of Ukraine, attacking police wantonly and used the sites that they controlled to deceive the unknowing sheep.
A guy on the radio told me.
The Orthodox are probably not going to complain too much as long as they can keep their sinecures.
Having realized it was a mistake to try to outright squash Christianity, modern tyrants keep it as a house pet on a short leash.
This was the state of “gay” prior to “gay marriage.”
Now, it’s pick your way to punk freedom. “Gaily” or not.
Have a good night, all.
AMEN AMEN AMEN!! Thank you!!
There is NOTHING to be admired about a cruel tyrant. I swear I think some people would admire Hitler as a strong leader.
Amazing how you look like a strong leader when you have the military do your bidding.
Putin is NOT a strong leader. Period.
Strange to see the rise of pussy riot leftist gasparov supporters on free republic.
Whatever may happen in the Crimea is like the Battle of Stalingrad: it's all anti-imperialist, anti-Fascist altruism entirely for the good of Enlightened Civilization and we can't appreciate it because we're revanchist reactionaries who want to expand NATO and start World War III so Slim Pickens can out of the bomb-bay doors of a B-52 on a Hydrogen Bomb.
Strong in the sense of the way he smells!
“Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation” per Google Translate.
What the dickens is this “Russian Federation”? Is Crimea set to become a new member of it or what?
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