It will not be possible to close Ingushetia.ru

Will there be a precedent for stopping a website by a court decision?

Last week, the Kuntsevsky District Court of Moscow suspended the activities of the Ingushetia.ru website while it considered the claim of the republic's prosecutor to close it. Thus, the court granted the prosecutor's request to apply interim measures on the claim. On July 30, 2007, the Kuntsevskaya Interdistrict Prosecutor's Office of Moscow opened a criminal case regarding the dissemination on the Internet site "Ingushetia.ru" of materials aimed at inciting national hatred and enmity in society.

The person involved in the case is the owner of the site, the person to whom the domain name is registered. The defense argues that the site is beyond the jurisdiction of the Russian court, since it is physically located on a server in the United States. The position is vulnerable, since the distribution of domain names in the .RU zone is delegated to the Russian registrar. And it is under Russian jurisdiction.

The decision of the Kuntsevo court orders Internet providers to close access to the site for users. Vladimir Yurasov, a lawyer at the Moscow Bar Association “Knyazev and Partners,” considers the court’s decision to be lawful. “As long as the court’s decision is not appealed, it is legal and justified. The issue is the execution of the court decision. The bailiff service has the right to enforce a court decision. But this is technically very difficult to do,” Mr. Yurasov is sure.

“The provider can deny access to its clients to a particular IP (the digital address that identifies the site - Ed. ), this does not pose any technical difficulties. In the situation with the Ingushetia.ru website, the court should have included all providers as co-defendants. And the decision that was made by the court will not affect the operation of the site in any way. There are hundreds and thousands of providers in Russia. The court decision will be implemented only at the regional level, that is, in Ingushetia,” said German Klimenko, owner of the Lifeinternet website. This is confirmed by the owner of the Ingushetia.ru website, Magomed Evloev: “All Ingush providers have blocked access to the site, users are forced to resort to anonymous proxy servers to open the site,” says Mr. Evloev.

The bailiff service of the Kuntsevsky Court has not yet notified even large Internet providers of its decision. “Our company has not received any court orders obliging us to block access to any Internet resources. But if such instructions are received and they comply with the norms of Russian legislation, we will definitely comply with them,” said Sergei Alimbekov, managing director of AKADO-Stolitsa CJSC.

Ingushetia.ru continues its work, and its editorial board is not going to change anything. “The judge, by way of enforcement, issued a ruling that does not oblige the editorial board to close the site. It obliges Russian Internet providers to block website IP addresses. Therefore, this definition does not concern us. Only reliable information is published on our website, and we do not intend to make it more “convenient” for the authorities. We will work as we work,” says Magomed Evloev.

On March 18, 2008, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation rejected the complaint of the Ingushetia prosecutor's office against the court decision allowing the Ingushetia.ru website to continue operating. A representative of the Prosecutor General's Office tried to challenge the decision of the Supreme Court of Ingushetia dated February 8, 2008, which determined that this lawsuit should be filed at the physical location of the server with the site's content, that is, in the United States.

Olga FEDINA, iToday.ru, - specially for Vremya Novostei