The message to the censor

The Council of Europe will require the Russian authorities explanations about blocking the "faces". Within the framework of the new project, non-governmental partner organizations report the most egregious cases of violation of freedom of speech and rights of journalists, and the European Council sends requests to the participating countries and publishes answers. The blocking of the "faces" according to the "Lugovoi Law" in March last year is one of the first cases that is considered according to the new procedure.

“Reporters without borders” draw attention to the fact that the Russian law on instant blocking of sites for “extremism” and “calls for illegal measures” formulated extremely widely and vaguely. In addition to “reporters without borders”, the international and European federation of journalists, the Association of European journalists and the human rights organization Article 19 participate in the new project of the Council of Europe.

The memorandum of the creation of an online quick response platform to defend freedom of the press was signed in December last year in Paris by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe by Turbieran Jagand and the leaders of five specialized international NPOs.

On March 11, the “facets” sent a complaint about blocking the site to the European Court of Human Rights. The ECHR also received complaints of Alexei Navalny and Harry Kasparov to block the sites owned by them.

The applicants claim that the blocking violates the 10th article of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights, guaranteeing the freedom of expression. In their complaint, the “border” indicated that the blocking is not based on the law and did not pursue a legitimate goal. In addition, the full blocking of the site was not necessary in a democratic society.

The complaint noted that the “facets” are blocked without specifying specific publications and in violation of the media law, which provides for the termination of the publication only by decision of the court. At the same time, "the applicants were deliberately misleading regarding the essence of the claims, since, as it turned out in the court of first instance, the Prosecutor General’s office demanded to limit access to calls to participate in unauthorized public events, while Roskomnadzor led to a different foundation - calls for extremist activity."

In addition to the main site, Roskomnadzor blocked about 400 mirrors of our site. "Reporters without borders" as part of the Collateral Freedom campaign created a "faces" mirror protected from locks .