Irek Murtazin, photo by Sergey Varshavchik

On Nov. 26, the Kirov district court of the city of Kazan convicted Irek Murtazin, a 45-year-old journalist and blogger, of defamation and incitement to hatred, reports Gazeta.ru [RUS]. The court sentenced Murtazin to one year and nine months of imprisonment in a penal colony (a form of imprisonment where convicts live not in a jail but in a special colony for prisoners).

About a year ago, in Dec. 2008, Murtazin - former head of Shaimiev's press service and currently an opposition blogger, aka lj-user irek-murtazin [RUS] - was accused of defamation against Mintimir Shaimiev, President of the Republic of Tatarstan. On Sept. 12, 2008, Murtazin published a post in which he mentioned a piece of gossip about Shaimiev's death. He wrote [RUS]:

Пришла страшная весть…
…на 72-ом году жизни, во время отдыха в Турции (в Кемере) скоропостижно скончался Минтимер Шарипович Шаймиев.
Честно говоря – не верится. Точнее, не хочется верить. Потому что, если это правда, то начнется такая свара, такая нешуточная борьба за то, чтобы занять освободившееся кресло, что чубы у холопов будут трещать и вдоль и поперек. И именно из-за подобных перспектив, ближайшее окружение Минтимера Шариповича попытается скрыть эту информацию. Чтобы успеть перегруппироваться (вплоть до скоропостижной эвакуации из страны). Именно поэтому официальная информация, думаю, будет не раньше чем через неделю.

The rumor of Shaimiev's death was denounced on the same day, but the shares of the oil company allegedly owned by the representatives of the so-called “Shaimiev clan” dropped significantly, says Lenta.ru [RUS]. In Dec. 2008, Murtazin was officially accused of defamation and infringement upon personal inviolability of Shaimiev. (It is important to note that the court acquitted Murtazin only on this latter charge.)

The trial lasted almost a year, and prosecution kept adding new accusations, blaming Murtazin for defamation and libel not only on his blog, but also in Murtazin's book “Mintimir Shaimiev: The Last President of Tatarstan. Part 1″ as well as in his news bulletin “Our Kazan News” (”Наши казанские вести,” which Murtazin described [RUS] in Oct. 2008 as a “print digest” of his LiveJouranl blog).

Murtazin said he didn't agree with the verdict and would file an appeal.

***

Irek Murtazin's bio (according to Anticompromat.org)

Born in 1964 in Bogatye Saby settlement, Tatarstan
1981-1990 - served in the Soviet Army, also in GRU (military intelligence unit)
1985 - graduated from the Kazan Higher Tank College
1990-1991 - assistant to the legislator Vladimir Lopatin
1995 - graduated from the Moscow Government Law Academy
1991-1995 - editor-in-chief of newspapers “Russian North” and “Gubernskie Vesti”
1993-1995 - editor-in-chief of TV-7, a local TV channel in Vologda
1995-1999 - bureau chief of the VGTRK (the largest state-owned TV company) in Kazan
1999-2002 - head of the press service of the President of Tatarstan
2002-2003 - head of TV channel “Tatarstan”
2003-2004 - head of VGTRK's Minsk, Belarus, bureau
2006-2007 - member of the regional branch of A Just Russia party in Tatarstan
2008-2009 -publisher and editor-in-chief of the news bulletin “Our Kazan News” (printed outside Tatarstan in Cheboksary, Republic of Chuvashia)

October alone produced a death toll of 24, including 12 suicides, according to the report (RUS), which was one of the monthly statistical bulletins on the so-called “non-combat losses” that the ministry publishes in the form of tables on its website, www.mil.ru.

The reports do not specify the proportions of draftees, soldiers doing contractual service and officers that make up the death tolls, and they only cover the Defense Ministry-run part of the military; no such statistics are available on armed services coming under the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service (FSB), or the Emergency Situations Ministry.

The Defense Ministry-controlled forces, where the term of draft service is one year, number about 1.2 million, including more than 300,000 officers.

The ministry's “non-combat losses” statistics have varied little from month to month, with this year's minimum and maximum monthly tolls being 23 and 37 respectively.

Accidents claimed more than 127 lives in the 10-month period, but the exact numbers of lives lost through accidents, murder, and, possibly, manslaughter are unclear because of the bulletins' rather confusing organization.

The reports have a category entitled “Accidents” (96 fatalities stated in the November report), but also separate categories on the mishandling of weapons (seven deaths) and road accidents (24), and a category entitled “Murders and Deaths through Negligence” (17). There is also a category (four deaths in the November bulletin) on “exceeding of powers” and the notorious bullying and brutal hazing by soldiers of fellow servicemen known as dedovshchina.

According to footnotes to the table, the total “non-combat” death toll is definitive, but criminal investigations into soldiers' deaths sometimes take a long time, and so some of the reported cases may be moved from one category to another later.

One of the notes says the statistics do not cover fatal diseases.

The November report, which also says 11,653 crimes were committed in the armed forces from January to October, has hardly drawn any comments on RuNet so far, but quite a lot of comments followed the October bulletin (RUS), which said the period from January to September had produced a death toll of 273.

There was hardly any reaction to the October report from bloggers, but there were quite a few comments on various news websites: some purely emotional, others trying to get to the causes of “non-combat” fatalities, one comment providing a link to a law firm that offers to exempt young men from the draft, and one person arguing that the death toll of 273 was too low to worry about.

There was, for example, a discussion on the Novosibirsk-based Lyubimy Gorod site, and below is a small selection of opinions posted there:

Silxer:

But everyone chooses their own way. If all you do is drink and smoke, that's where you will be [i.e., drafted into the army]. These days tricking yourself out [of the draft is no problem]…

***

Tatyana and KOtyata:

Study and study [a reference to Vladimir Lenin's advice to young people], or phone here [a link to the website of a law firm in Novosibirsk that promises allegedly guaranteed exemption from the draft]

***

Zyklon_B:

Moreover, according to the Defense Ministry, 10,396 crimes were committed in the military since the start of the year, 1,023 of them in September. If one serves in the Russian military, there is a high probability that one will become a criminal.

There was also a debate (RUS) on the site of the Novy Region 2 online news agency:

Kapitan:

An I-couldn't-give-a-shit attitude on the part of officers, lack of REAL sergeants, moronic combat training programs – all these are results of these “non-combat” losses in the Armed Forces [he apparently means 'causes' rather than ‘results']. Russia is no exception either. The situation is just as crazy in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. And the ultimate reason is there are more old-fart generals, colonels and rubbishy staff and logistics officers than soldiers in our armies. There're 10 officers for each rank-and-file soldier!!! There's one more little group of good-for-nothings with stars on their shoulders – the warrant officers. I'm not talking about those who command companies or are special forces fighters – I'm talking about the LOGISTIC services, where, at times, to get something out of a warrant officer in a combat or financial unit you have to either give him a bottle of brandy or simply blow his teeth out – an IMPENETRABLE BUNCH OF BASTARDS.

***

Dersu Uzala:

This is a very low ratio between non-combat losses and the total number of military personnel for any army in the world.

Why should NR [New Region] be running into hysterics?

***

SPETS:

In fact, in a large city with a population of a minimum of one million more people get killed by drugs […] than in the entire armed forces with all their losses. But they don't yell about that, do they!

***

Nerussky:

The main causes of non-combat losses are old armaments plus the fact that military personnel have very little experience of using them, the exceptionally low education standards of draftees and their exceptionally poor health, the shortage of officers and their being too busy with goodness knows what but not work with soldiers, exceptionally poor performance on the part of officers in working with soldiers – most of them simply lack the knowledge that's needed for this.

A lonely comment, posted by “a student” on the Velikaya Epokha (The Epoch Times) site, said (RUS):

Yet they keep taking young guys into the military, our state broke the lives of 273 people.

Reuters reported on Nov. 17, citing Gen. Peter Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, that about 140 soldiers in the Army had committed suicide in 2009.

“The main thing about IDN ccTLD [internationalized domain names country code top-level domain] is that people who do not understand Latin (English) will be able to use their own language to access the Internet. The Web will become more familiar to people,” Veni Markovski, a representative for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) [ENG] in Russia, CIS and Eastern Europe, told the GVO.

The final decision to introduce Cyrillic URLs was made in October 30, 2009 when the ICANN finally approved the request to let different states use their national alphabets for domain names.  On November 16, the Russian Coordination Center for National Intern Domain (RU-Center) submitted an official request for creating a .РФ zone.  Although a limited registration of Cyrillic domains starts on November 25, the first requests were already submitted on November 11. The administration of the Russian president is very likely to become the first institution in the .РФ zone with a new URL “кремль.рф” (kremlin.rf). The local government of the Ekaterinburg region also submitted a request asking for “екатеринбург.рф” (ekaterinburg.rf) and “екбург.рф” (ekburg.rf) domains.

The main concern for the RU-Center during the registration is cybersquatting when people and companies buy popular domain names with the only purpose to resell them later for a higher price. But it looks like making a fortune with reselling .РФ URLs won’t be an easy task.

The first stage of registration starts on November 25, 2009 and will continue until March 25, 2010. Only government organizations and owners of officially recognized trademarks - there are at least eight thousand trademarks owners in Russia- will be allowed to apply for a .РФ  address during the first months.

The registration will be opened to the general public in April 2010. But not everyone will be able to afford a new domain. Buying a domain name on the first day of the open registration would cost 10 million rubles ($340,000). The price will decline to 100,000 rubles ($3,400) closer to June when the process won't be regulated by the RU-Center. At that point, everyone will be able to purchase a domain name at the price set by different commercial domain sellers.

The stream of applications to the  RU-Center started long before November 25. Several thousands of Russian companies and organizations submitted early requests. More than a half of those requests were already denied.

“Over a week, only 1,117 applications have been approved while over 1,500 have been declined,” Andrey Vorobyov, a PR manager at the RU-Center, said. “The applicants do not take the rules seriously and their domain names contain Cyrillic letters along with Latin characters. Some names do not even represent their trade marks.”

The RU-center does not allow Latin letters in new .РФ domains. New URLs also cannot contain offensive words and expressions. A special group of Russian linguists analyzes every application for any abuses of the language.

Some Russian experts see potential conflicts and issues at the earliest stages of the registration. Svetlana Vladimirova, a director of “Mediapartner” company, said that some trademark owners have almost identical names and that can lead to all sorts of problems  and confusions during the process.

Russia is the first but not the only country that will have top-level domains based on its own alphabet. The Egyptian Minister of communication Tarek Kamel said at the Sharm El Sheikh Internet Governance Forum [ENG] that Egypt would be the first to use Arabic letters in the state domains. The new URLs will contain “.masr” (Egypt) extension written in Arabic.

Applications for new national top level domains were also submitted to the ICANN by China, Bulgaria and few other countries. One can witness a chain reaction around the former Soviet Union with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine expressing their interest in Cyrillic domain names for their countries.

Most Russian experts consider .РФ domain great news of national importance and a special achievement for the country. The new zone will definitely provide new  and more effective ways to reach the Russian-language audience. It will also significantly increase the amount of Russian speakers using the World Wide Web. Some experts say that the age of Internet users in Russia will be significantly younger since the usage of Cyrillic in URLs will make it easier for children to go online.

The Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called the creation of the Cyrillic zone an “important goal” of the Internet development in the country. Medvedev also underlined its symbolic importance for Russia. The authorities claim that it will speed up the process of creating an effective e-government system. The Russian Minister of Communications Igor Shegolev noted recently that the new domain zone would be used to create a government e-mail services making it easier for citizens to communicate with government officials.

But not everyone is optimistic. “No one needs an .РФ zone,” Vladimir Dolgiy-Rapoport, a CEO of Aroundme.ru, said in an interview for the Forbes magazine. “The net is international but the Cyrillic address can’t by typed in most of the countries.”

For better or for worse, the emergence of a .РФ zone also includes a strong political message. The global nature of the Internet in many cases threaten the sovereignty of state actors. In many cases, a commitment of people to a particular network that doesn’t have any affiliation with the state identity is stronger than their commitment to state framework. Until now, governments had difficulties defining state-affiliated spaces in the virtual word. In a way, the national alphabet domains create new borders in the virtual reality and support the state sovereignty.

Domains in different languages also raises some questions about net neutrality. In the near future, the access to some of content on the Internet will be limited to those who know and can type national alphabet characters into an address box of a Web browser. In other words, the new domains not only support the state sovereignty but can also increase the cyberspace fragmentation by drawing new virtual borders.

Veni Markovski believes that the new domain zone has nothing to do with the net neutrality. He claimes that it makes the Internet more accessible. “There is no relation between the new top level domains and the net neutrality issue, which is mainly an issue in the United States,” he said. “The IDN ccTLD - and note, we are talking here only about a country code TLD, not generic TLD - provide more access. If you are from a country that does not use Latin letter, you might never be able to understand what the Internet says… Think about it in a different way, what if the Internet was created in China, instead of in the U.S., and we all had to write the web addresses in Chinese? How many users would there be in E.U., or the U.S., or in Russia?”

A month ago it was Orange, now followed by T-Mobile.

Already time ago there were cases when some (maybe can mostly name them local or minor) providers were blocking torrents, if not completely, then during daylight or for the cheapest versions. Or they were limiting traffic of users who wanted to download more than someone decides, even if they paid flat program with fast access. (To keep balance: also big players, T-Com, used limited upload speed, which has influenced torrents download.) All of this could be easily labeled as a way to lower network traffic, with the intention to minimize the price the provider needs to invest to it.

Now comes something new with the great idea of blocking child pornography.

To achieve this goal, both providers are using the British Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) database to avoid connection to some web pages - so people really interested in them must make a bit more effort to avoid this blocking.

People who responded to an online poll at SME.sk (say liberal) newspaper mostly voted ‘Yes' for “Do you want your internet provider to block access to pages with child porn?”

If I remember well, people in China have similar opinion in case of porn generally. But things are not so simple - and not just in China. (GV posts on the “internet cleansing movement” in China are here and here.)

The IWF database is not public. (That's why it is a non-governmental organization, I think. At least in Slovakia, if it is part of the government, they must reply to citizens' questions about what and why they're blocking.) And they operate in the British, not Slovak, law space.

It blocks also many general and legal pages for file downloads and there is no guarantee they will not block anything else they decide (the complete Wikipedia was already on their list).

Users have no official way to stop filtering. Last month, T-Mobile made initial filtering of their own adult services, but it was necessary to activate it by SMS. (Understand: of course T-Mobile's business is not related to child porn and its blockage will cover approximately about 0% of such internet services.) Now both providers are talking about no exceptions for IWF.

A question also is why Orange, with such high moral, does blocking of its mobile-network only, while optics-cable connected customers (where traffic already does not matter so much, right?) do not have this “advantage”.

So if you want uncensored mobile internet access in Slovakia you must move to O2, the newest provider here. Yes, this one is the leader of IWF filtering in the Czech Republic.

This is the actual state of things 20 years after the Czechoslovak Gentle revolution ended the Soviet-based system here.

Here's a selection of anonymous netizens' reactions (SLO) posted at SME.sk portal:

randy10:

Internet has to be free, open and uncensored. No company should start filtering, can offer it only as an extra part that needs to be switched on explicitly. Today it is child pornography, tomorrow it's the pages of right-wing parties, the day after tomorrow - academic segment or all religions except Christianity. This is not correct.

***

real name:

I've already reported this [to IWF]. [Orange's page with pictures for mobile phones with ‘Angels and Devils' theme.]

***

čisté ruky [clean hands]:

So we will join the list. Google in China, Youtube in Turkey - and Orange in Slovakia.

***

archi731:

Child porn is the worst thing that could be found on the internet and those responsible for it have to be jailed for long years, but this is an absolutely incorrect way, because here what is being questioned is the freedom of individual united with responsibility for own acts. After all, we are a democratic country, adult persons and not some small children, and the internet provider is not some tutor to have the right to deal with us this way.

***

archi731:

In addition, this is a dangerous precedent and no one knows where it will end. Tomorrow they will start to block other forms of criminality at internet, that it will become something normal, state will adopt the right to deal with people preventively like with potential criminals, enter their privacy and the day after tomorrow we'll have here censorship like in China.

***

osc:

I personally do not care. When they are blocking porn pages focused on child pornography (if there are such), I vote for it. Maybe some people from Catholic church will miss them. [The person quoted here is referring to the much publicized pedophilia cases involving Catholic priests, but I do not remember any real cases that took place in Slovakia.]

***

Mikaco:

And after a short time we all will need to learn the Chinese language. :(

***

sanity inside:

And do not be surprised that no one trusts IWF - in Slovakia, we have a rich experience with censorship. That one before the November [Velvet revolution] also had a different function officially. Filtering should be good in principle, but requires credible institutions.

***

lubo.flynt:

The problem is IWF does not block child porn only. If “by chance” a serious page appears on their list for removing they require a sponsor's check. [Note: This anonymous commenter has not provided any proof for this.]

***

všetci do žatvy [all to harvest]:

In that poll under the article, 27% of readers do not like child porn blocking, what kind of creatures are they?

***

ABBE:

All tragedies start with great ideas.

The choir uses humor, which is reflected in their repertoire. They performed children's song “We are Macedonians” (Ние сме Mакедонци) [MKD] at the public holiday of the Day of the Macedonian Revolutionary Struggle, and had a performance in front of the Greek Liaison Office (a de facto Embassy of Greece) with the song “Dirlada” (Дирлада) [MKD] about summer love of a Macedonian boy and Greek girl who encounter difficulties due to visa restrictions.

On a grimmer note, the Singing Skopjans also sang “Kill me” (Убиј ме) by the local band Bernays Propaganda, which includes these lyrics:

Не сум како тебе,
немам иста боја,
омразата е твоја
…
Не сум како тебе
затоа у-б-и-ј м-е
убиј, убиј ме.

…in order to comment on the events of beating up student protesters on a Skopje square a few months ago.

The latest performance includes the Lumberjack Song by Monty Python, related to the cutting of the old trees on the Ilinden Boulevard, an act of Skopje's mayor which caused a lot of anguish and frustration [MKD] among ordinary citizens several months ago.

The word about this innovative commentary source has been spreading mainly through social media, especially through Facebook, and after a few weeks caught the attention of the traditional media: Dnevnik daily published an article about the choir [MKD].

The compulsory display of a symbol of a given confession in premises used by the public authorities… restricted the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions.

The Polish parliament, however, has decided [POL] to continue allowing handing out crosses in Polish classrooms and on other public premises. And a Polish association of Catholics, Unum Principium, has also proposed including the symbol of the cross in the national emblem of Poland. Currently, the emblem has a white eagle in a golden crown on red background, but Krzysztof Zagozda, the association's spokesman, refers to the national emblem from 1927, when the eagle's crown had a cross incorporated on top of it. He explains the group's proposal [POL]:

Including cross in national symbols is important for patriotic reasons. For many Polish citizens it expresses separateness of a kind or fight for independence. Hence why we need to restore it.

Image source: Wikipedia

This proposal has generated over 500 reactions on the forum of Poland's main daily, Gazeta.pl.

Maruda.r questions the above statement [POL]:

It's not entirely right, as Polish eagles were wearing different crowns: […] Emblems, coats of arms change - they reflect certain status, which is not there any more. We might as well reach out for the chicken placed on coins in Piast times.

Feurig59 states [POL]:

Carry the crosses in your hearts. Not everything has to be shown off - worn off symbols, whose meaning is carried by very few in this country, but everyone is scrubbing and polishing their ‘gods', so everyone could see how strongly they feel about ‘tradition' and what a good Pole and Catholic they are. Makes me sick:(

Michelange75 points out [POL]:

As a Catholic I say - No. Those people do not understand that this leads to antagonisms within Polish society and a loss of trust in the church for many Poles. Are we to experience the mistake of Western countries, where churches stand empty. That is what those chauvinists and pseudo-Catholics want. If so, than in this entire war over the cross and entire aspect of moving crosses away from school ordered by Europe, and which we do not seem to have to respect, Polish Catholic church will lose. It's totally irresponsible.

This statement is followed up by a response from ludwigvanbeethoven, who is a Protestant [POL]:

Catholics believe themselves as the only right faith, but I am asking - why? As a protestant, I demand all churches in Europe to look like protestant ones. […] Religion should be an inner business of each citizen, and not a huge balloon and sour faces, that Brussels does not want to include common values into their constitution.

On another site, AdamM sounds very sarcastic [POL]:

But Poland is to be a province of Vatican, so it's easier this way. Of course during GCSA exams we will pass religion too, and on our CV's we will need to put dates of our baptism, first communion and confirmation as well as the exact amount of money given during each mass. We will let out on our streets policemen who will check if we all carry crosses and know how to pray, and for those who protest, we will build stakes. We could also do with dusting off the Middle Ages torture machines so that the conversion is smoother.

A Northern Irish Polish forum contains a discussion on how having a cross in the emblem differs from having it next to it one wall; the main thoughts are expressed by 33lncr [POL]:

Aaa, those are the guys from the Madonna concert affair [cancelled due to protest of Catholics], so the case is clear… Seriously, though, for me it's only an add-on to a picture with a bird. But when I think of it rationally, what has the cross to do with Poles - atheists or Poles-other-believers, who are also patriots, what does it have to do with Poles-Catholics who are not patriots at all (I know the last one is in our country almost an oxymoron, but logically speaking quite possible)?

There are a few supportive opinions, though, like the one expressed by Krzysiek [POL]:

I support them. Poland is a Catholic country and we should protect our faith and show it somehow. If someone is unhappy, they should go to France where Catholics have practically nothing to say, and the majority of people believes in Islam.

On Nov. 3, I noticed that a new Twitter account was following me on that microblogging site, and its name intrigued me: @czyIKEAjestOK [is IKEA OK?]. It turns out that the account set up only a day before, on Nov. 2, belongs to an initiative of Polish citizens who work for IKEA via another, smaller, company called Solid Security, and who claim to be mistreated by those. They claim to be earning amounts below the national minimal wage, being assigned to work up to 16 hours daily and lacking the basic benefits, as we read on their Facebook page [POL]:

Our employers lower our wages, but also make us sign fictional contracts depriving us of the basic rights like annual leave or sick leave benefits.

When representatives of the employees entered IKEA building to turn in a copy of their petition containing the above-mentioned issues and signed by all of the affected, hoping to be able to talk to an IKEA spokesman, they were asked to leave the building by the head of security himself. This situation was filmed and is available on all of their social media sites.

The initiative's blog explains the main question they are raising via the on-line campaign [POL]:

We work for IKEA, but officially we are employed by another company. We earn low wages, we have no social fund. Buying medicine, illness is a financial catastrophe for us. IKEA washed their hands off it - officially they are not responsible. Is this OK?

It also hosts a voting where you can choose between ‘I am not bothered' and ‘ I think it's not OK' options.

‘And you, what do you think? Do you think IKEA is OK? Have your say:

I am not bothered. / It's not OK.'

On their site, in the FAQ section, we find a reason why the citizens have decided to contact IKEA directly to address their issues [POL]:

Of course we wanted to talk to Solid Security, the company which employed us, first, but we were ignored. Solid are aware of their position and the advantage they have over their employees, so any conversation is very difficult. That's why we decided to seek support at the company that pays Solid and thus can have a huge impact on their operations.

This initiative was picked up by a few on-line news portals, and was described by Interaktywnie.com (a Polish social media marketing portal)  in a news article, where commentators praised the neat build-up of the on-line campaign. Generally, however, there is a small amount of reactions on-line, which focus mainly on questioning why IKEA was targeted instead of Solid Security, pointing out that no-one is forced to work there, and waiting to see how the initiative develops.

On a portal dedicated to the industry news, Abenador states [POL]:

I have no idea if IKEA is OK or not, but when it comes to work conditions at SOLID, their employees should talk to … SOLID. Including IKEA in this argument is probably unnecessary and makes no sense (they are not the employers).

Aaa2 responds to this on a different forum [POL]:

Of course the employees did go to SOLID, too. IKEA is one of the largest clients of Solid and it is also said to be socially responsible. It cannot avoid the responsibility for employees working on their grounds, if it is so sensitive socially.

Dink points out in a board discussion:

work at IKEA is not mandatory

On Wykop (a Polish version of Digg.com), crea says [POL]:

I must say it's not a good situation…but it's a corporation, so it will be difficult to win with them..

Przemek postshis opinion on an HR portal:

As I understand, Mr Roman and his company do understand the amount of brand damage they are causing… But it's not the scale of brand damage which requires serious treatment of similar cases. I will watch with interest how this case develops, mainly in the social media.

This action conduced mainly via social media channels with usage of both visual and textual content grows in followers on Twitter, Facebook and in views on YouTube, as well as in numbers of votes on the main site. Representatives of Global Union from Sweden, USA, Italy, Ireland, Holland and other countries have expressed their concerns about the case of the Polish employees in a document published on Facebook. After four weeks since the original incident, both companies remain silent.

Town of Kraskovo coat of arms (from the official site)

Russian activists gathered in Kraskovo, a small town near Moscow, to call for increasing broadband Internet access and protest against Internet provider monopoly.  The activists also talked about superficial regulations that slow down the development of wide Internet access in the country.

The story goes back to the beginning of 2008 when an Internet service provider (ISP) “CDMS, Ltd” ( “Creative Direct Marketing Solutions”) announced its plans to offer broadband Internet access to the residents of Kraskovo.  Russian laws require an ISP to obtain a permission from municipal authorities before offering its services in any town. An ISP also has to get an approval of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and install a hardware that would potentially allow to sniff the Internet traffic.

With 10 years of experience in business, the CDMS got used to all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles. The vice-president of the company Vladimir Korvatsky (lj-user korvatsky [RUS]) writes on his blog that minor problems with local authorities are nothing new but Kraskovo case is different.

According to a Russian newspaper Moskovski Komsomolets [RUS], when the CDMS applied for a permission to install Ethernet-network in Kraskovo, Mikhail Chuiko, a newly elected mayor, sent the application back with a note that the process should be coordinated with the FSB “to ensure protection against terrorists.” When the FSB finally authorized the application, the mayor requested another approval from the security service. This time he wanted the FSB to investigate the company.

This shouldn't surprise anyone in Russia. Government officials usually come up with many excuses to delay the approval process so they can make businesses pay a bribe to speed it up. But, unlike in many similar cases, the Kraskovo authorities did not want any bribes from the CDMS. They stopped all contacts with the company representatives and showed that they did not want the CDMS to enter local ISP market.

Kraskovo currently has two ISPs offering a broadband access: netts.ru and avk-wellcom.ru. Korvatsky states [RUS] that his and other companies are not allowed into the town because of strong ties and commercial interests uniting local ISPs and the town authorities.

Vladimir Korvatsky and the youth organization “Our Yard” organized a protest against the status quo with ISPs in the town:

The Moscow Region Anti-monopoly Service recently issued a statement [RUS] declaring that the Kraskovo authorities violate anti-monopoly law.

This case is far from being unique. There are thousands of small Russian towns where people don't have a luxury of the broadband services. Very often geographical isolation and the lack of initiative are just excuses for widespread corruption of local administrations in those towns. The example of Kraskovo shows how ISPs try to overcome those issues by taking public actions. At the same time,  it gives an additional reason for local authorities to accuse the ISPs of astroturfing.

Filip Stojanovski is a Global Voices author and translator based in Skopje, Macedonia. He is the Program Coordinator of Metamorphosis, a think tank which seeks the development of democracy and prosperity by promoting knowledge-based economy and information society. He has been blogging in both English and Macedonian since 2003 and has written a number of essays and research papers. His essay “Some Sources Of Bias In Reporting About Macedonia” is especially relevant to those interested in global perceptions of Macedonia.

You might be surprised to learn that the Japanese cherry blossom festival, Sakura, is celebrated in Macedonia's capital, Skopje. Among Filip's other blog posts: the use of new media in Macedonia's 2008 election, Facebook's removal of the personal profile of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and a recent boat accident on Lake Ohrid. His post about Greece's opposition to Macedonia's entry into NATO attracted nearly 100 long, passionate comments.

Transcript:

My name is Filip Stojanovski. I am living in Skopje, Macedonia. I contribute to Global Voices through articles usually about the Macedonian blogosphere, and I also translate some for the Macedonian version of Global Voices.

Blogs in Macedonia didn't really take off until 2004 - and especially 2005 - and as far as I know the first blog from Macedonia was founded in 2001 by a young woman called Ana Maria who is living in Poland, and then the real impulse for development of the Macedonian blogosphere came from the development of a local Macedonian-language platform called Blogerei - blog.com.mk - which also used other, offline media to promote it's functionality.

David: You told me that Global Voices is one of the key aspects in your strategy
for more e-content in Macedonia. Why is that?

Filip: Well, generally Macedonian media do not provide much content
about the situation abroad that is different from the few mainstream agencies
that are dominant on the world market. Because some of the Macedonian media are connected to say Reuters or AP through their networks of ownership. Generally we lack a lot of information which is provided by Global Voices - information by regular people about events which are not only sensationalist, but are also often
interesting for the Macedonian public because they refer to things happening which are similar to situations here, and are not covered by the media. So it is very important for us that we have the perspective of how various problems are solved and various issues are raised elsewhere which can also be replicated here. And also to share our experiences.

David: So when you translate content into Macedonian, how do you choose which content you translate?

Filip: Well, all of our translators have the latitude to choose what they will translate. Because we are all volunteers and there is no central authority delegating which article to be translated. So if somebody wants to translate an article about a topic, they do it on their own. So, for me, myself, I usually have been translating articles which are about topics that I find interesting. And which I feel need further exposure within the Macedonian public. Especially because sometimes there are parallels that can be drawn but are not exploited by the traditional media.

David: What have you learned during your time as a Global Voices author and translator?

Filip: In general, I've learned more about the diversity of various citizen journalists around the world. And also about the need for the further spreading of information because what we have now is an experience where there are more people out there with whom you can do good things together than you would suppose before. It is probably the most important thing - that there is the possibility to do more and better things in the future.

David: What do you hope to see as the future of Global Voices over the next five years?

Filip: Well, generally I hope to have a bigger influence and more influence which would be connected to maybe offline activities within various communities. Generally, the content of Global Voices I think is great and should continue in the same direction. Maybe to attract even more authors and even more translators. Because it is not only beneficial at a social level - promoting progressive changes around the world - but also beneficial at a personal level. I find it very interesting that my Global Voices profile has a higher Google ranking than most of the things that I've done over the last 10 years online. And I think that as more translators get more global in a way of trying to find customers worldwide and not just in their own little business circle then this would provide a good incentive to attract more volunteers who are professional and willing to contribute their time. But in general it would also be interesting and very beneficial to continue with Rising Voices-like initiatives that would empower more users in more diverse communities worldwide especially those with less opportunities.