Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 4 – The growth in
Internet use in the Russian Federation over the last year has meant that “for
the first time, the Internet began to be considered by the Russian government
as the main source of threat to its well-being and stability,” according to the
annual report of the Agora Inter-Regional Human Rights Organization.
The 12-page, heavily footnoted report
by Damir Gaynutdinov and Pavel Chikov is at www.eliberator.ru/files/%D0%90%D0%93%D0%9E%D0%A0%D0%90.%20%D0%9D%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B0%20%D0%98%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B0%202012.pdf.
A partial summary of its contents can be found at grani.ru/Internet/m.211237.html).
The
report notes that there were both “an increasing number of cases” in which the
state imposed restrictions” and “the growth by an order of magnitude of the
number of proposals for regulating the Internet, not one of which contained a
guarantee of freedom but rather were directed exclusively at increasing control
… and the introduction of new forms of censorship.”
In
2012, there were 1197 instances in Russia of limiting freedom of the Internet,
including 103 criminal prosecutions, 208 of administrative pressure, and 609
involving limiting access to sites. Each
of these was significantly larger than the year before, with some of them
having increased by more than two times.
Acts
of repression against use of the Internet also spread across the country, with
38 regions now involved in such actions compared to 35 a year before. And the number of federal subjects where the
authorities employed “serious pressure” increased from four to nine, with the
most dangerous regions being Stavropol kray, Tyumen Oblat and then Moscow.
2012
thus became “a turning point for the Runet, which has rapidly gone from the
periphery of social-political life to the center and demonstrated the broadest
possibility for self-organization of active citizens,” the report continues,
and thus it “has attracted” more than
ever before the attention of the authorities.
Gaynutdinov
and Chikov say they are cerain that “this trend will continue” in 2013, and
they express regret that “not a single organization represented in the Internet
community in Russia is speaking out clearly and in a principled fashion in
defense of the freedom of use and dissemination of information on the Net.”
“The
‘ostrich-like’ strategy of Internet business and Internet community,” they
suggest, “is explained by their direct … or indirect … dependency on the
Russian authorities.” And that
too, they argue, is unlikely to change, even though the issues are gaining
attention with some high profile people like Aleksey Navalny affected and other
Web activists fleeing abroad.
For the first time, last year
featured “the massive flight” of such activists to other countries. At the same
time, the authors of the report note, “the owners of sites also began actively
to choose foreign jurisdictions” for their IPs.
No one should be under any illusion
that this is a purely domestic problem, Gaynutdinov and Chikov argues. Moscow’s policy at home increasingly during
2012 found expression in its foreign policy actions, even though it suffered
defeats in 2011 at the UN and in December 2012 at Dubai, when its ideas on “net
sovereignty” were rejected by the international community.
Indeed, they conclude, it is
entirely fair to say that “namely Russia represents for the free and open
Internet a global threat to the extent that far more than China it is interested
in the adoption of international acts regulating the Net.” That will continue and should provide common
ground for Internet users inside the Russian Federation and those abroad.
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