Alexey Sidorenko · June, 2010

Latest posts by Alexey Sidorenko from June, 2010

Russia: Police Would Like to ‘Cooperate’ With Bloggers

Valery Gribakin, head of the public relations department of the Russian Ministry of Interior, expressed a will to meet with top-ranking bloggers in order to discuss ways of possible cooperation, rsn.ru reported [RUS]. Bloggers have lots of questions to the police but don't expect the answers, sadly comments anti-corruption blogger...

Russia: President Medvedev Visits Silicon Valley

Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, during the widely discussed tour to the Silicon Valley, dined with Arnold Schwarzenegger [EN], visited Apple [RUS], officially started [EN] an account on Twitter [RUS] at the company's headquarters, and refused [EN] to meet with Google‘s creator Sergey Brin. The Russian blogosphere reacted [RUS] with a number of...

Russia: New Websites to Promote Modernist Islam

Paul Goble writes [EN] about the launch of two websites islam-portal.ru and soyuzmusulmanok.ru, that promote modernist Islam. Two websites, Goble suggests, illustrate both attempts to seek connections with younger Muslim population, while competing with fundamentalist Islamists, and to prove Tatars as “intellectual leaders of the Muslim umma of Russia”.

Russia: Online Media Exempt From Comments Responsibility

Russian Supreme Court finally approved the decision concerning responsibility of online news media for the comments published on their forums, lenta.ru reported [RUS]. The court exempt the news websites from any responsibility for comments left by the users. However, Roskomnadzor [RUS], Internet regulatory body, has the authority to oblige site...

Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan: Initial Coverage of the “Osh Massacre”

On June 10, 2010, local clashes between the ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek population in the Kyrgyz part of the Ferghana valley turned into a full-blown massacre and further exodus of the Kyrgyzstan-based Uzbeks. It seems that the conflict had been incited by the Kyrgyz organized criminal gangs in order to destabilize the region and might be connected with the revolutionary events in Kyrgyzstan two months earlier. The post summarizes initial coverage of the event by local bloggers.

Russia: Street Action to Save Khimki Forest

Bloggers Igor Podgorny [RUS] and bb-mos [RUS] post pictures of the street action to protect a historic oak forest north of Moscow. Legally protected Khimki Forest Park is endangered to be completely replaced due to the construction of the new Moscow-St.Petersburg highway [EN].

Russia: Prosecutor's Office Forces Provider to Close Website

Prosecutor's office of Zabaikalsky region [EN] demanded to block [RUS] the website of newspaper “Russkoye Zabaikalie” (previously available at www.srn.megalink.ru), whose content has been officially recognized as “extremist.” Earlier, the newspaper's editor was given a 1-year suspended sentence [RUS] for xenophobic and anti-Semitic articles.

Russia: Are Websites Responsible for User Comments?

The latest edition of the Supreme Court's decision says online news media will be responsible for user comments left on their websites, gazeta.ru reports [RUS]. A previous version implied no accountability for user comments, but it is now being revised due to pressure from RosKomNadzor, a government media and internet regulation...

Russia: Artists Against State Bureaucracy

Several artists led by Alexey Biryukov launched the blog “Artist! Set Yourself Free!” [RUS]. The idea of the blog is to attract attention to the issue of export of modern art from Russia. Currently an artist needs a state permission to move his/her piece of art outside the country (even...