The page of an atheist community on a social network is blocked

In Grozny, a court ruled to block the "There is no God" page on the VKontakte social network. On July 13, 2015, the page was unblocked.

12 July 2015 it became known that on May 13, 2015 the Leninsky District Court Grozny decided to recognize it as prohibited for viewing and enter it into the Unified Register banned sites community page "There is no God" in the social network "VKontakte". On July 9, the page was blocked.

Court considered that the page contained "material intended to offend religious feelings of the Orthodox and the spread of which can be a prerequisite for inciting national, racial or religious hatred or enmity" . The court decision does not indicate which materials were considered such.

The page of the "There is no God" group, which included about 26 thousand people, indeed, contained a lot of materials that could be regarded as blastemia and had a provocative character. In separate comments may contain calls for violence. From our point of view, the best solution there would be an appeal from law enforcement agencies to the administrators of the social network, so that they oblige the community to comply with the rules established for users.

However The Leninsky District Court of Grozny ruled, in our opinion, an unlawful solution. The decision to recognize information as prohibited for dissemination and blocking access to it, the courts take out only on the basis of previous judicial acts relating to this information. These could be criminal convictions dissemination of this information or decision to recognize it or similar extremist materials. In this case, the court exceeded its powers, because relied only on assumptions about the danger of community materials. At the same time, a claim for recognition of the entire page or individual materials from it extremist.

On the evening of July 13, 2015, the page was unblocked. The reasons for the blocking were photos with naked women and religious symbols. After their removal, VKontakte agreed to unblock the community, and Roskomnadzor removed it from the register of banned sites.

Sources

• Likhachev Nikita. "VKontakte" blocked the community "There is no God" by the decision of the Chechen court // TJournal.ru. 2015. July 13.
• Likhachev Nikita. The administrator of “There is no God” spoke about the reasons for blocking the community and the recommendations of VKontakte support // TJournal.ru. 2015. July 14.