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Russian state censor says it's illegal to claim atheists don't have souls
The Kremlin’s media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has ordered the news agency NGS.Novosti to delete a reader’s comment claiming that atheists have no souls, saying the comment abuses the freedom of speech.
The comment in question, now deleted, said that atheists deny the existence of an immortal soul, and therefore do not possess immortal souls. Another reader left a different comment arguing that atheists are worse than animals, insofar as animals do have souls.
Earlier, at the request of Roskomnadzor, NGS.Novosti deleted three comments that could have been construed as insults to representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church.
- Roskomnadzor regularly demands that media outlets delete certain kinds of information that state officials determine to be illegal. It remains unclear how insisting on the soullessness of atheists violates the law exactly.
- NGS.Novosti is a network of regional websites publishing news about events in Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Barnaul, Omsk, Kemerovo, Tomsk, Novokuznetsk, and Irkutsk.