The first stories of temporary suspension of access, in this case to Yaroslavl information sites, which were subsequently unblocked, confirm the opinion that the law on insulting the authorities will be applied broadly and flexibly in order to simplify the work of supervisors and at the same time prevent the appearance in print and online media of harsh statements addressed to government officials.

On Thursday, providers stopped access to the website of the Yaroslavl online publication Yarkub, and on Friday, another regional portal, 76.ru, was shut down. According to Olga Prokhorova, editor-in-chief of 76.ru, access was stopped after the editorial staff refused to remove a photo with an abusive inscription addressed to Putin (his last name is the same as the last name of the Russian president) on the columns of the local police department building – the order to do so was received by telephone from employees of the regional department of Roskomnadzor.

Access to the 76.ru website was restored in the middle of the day on Saturday – after the photo was removed, Prokhorova reported.

"Yarkub" opened only on Sunday evening.

In the Roskomnadzor registry, the restriction of access to Yaroslavl sites is explained not by the new law on insulting the authorities, but by the norm prohibiting the publication of child pornography, information about methods of making and using drugs, and methods of committing suicide.

Despite all the differences in the situation with different publications, the general trend is visible. The extremely vague provisions of the new law on terminating access to information expressing obvious disrespect for society, the state, its symbols and state authorities in an indecent form are supplemented by the desire of officials to interpret the legal concept of "insult" and the extra-legal category of respect as broadly as possible. As in early April, publications tried to force the removal of a "bad" photo by phone, without the official letter from Roskomnadzor required by law.

No matter how much bureaucrats claim the opposite, explaining calls to the editorial office that are not prescribed by law as preventive measures, these calls look exactly like censorship prohibited by the Constitution and the law on mass media.

It is unlikely that the matter is in the malice of Yaroslavl officials and law enforcement: if the “bad” graffiti had not been found in Yaroslavl, the guardians of power and its symbols would have seen signs of disrespect for it either in the publication of slogans for the “garbage” demonstration in Arkhangelsk, or in the link to a video of Zenit fans singing “the governor is a jerk.”

Sarkis Darbinyan, a lawyer for Roskomsvoboda, believes that the experience of censorship pressure will be taken into account and applied depending on the effect achieved. It is unknown whether it will be possible to intimidate online and printed publications in this way.

The authors of the law and its executors do not understand that such prohibitions do not generate respect, but contempt and pity, and the restriction of freedom of expression in the country of Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov, Averchenko, Zoshchenko and, finally, Galich and Kim looks like a ridiculous imitation of the worst tsarist and Soviet practices.

We are waiting for responses to the monstrations.

Yaroslavl censorship testing ground