Slashdot Mirror
Russia Blocks Internet Sites of Putin Critics
An anonymous reader writes in with news about Russias censorship of internet sites critical of President Vladimir Putin. "Russia blocked access to the internet sites of prominent Kremlin foes Alexei Navalny and Garry Kasparov on Thursday under a new law critics say is designed to silence dissent in President Vladimir Putin's third term. The prosecutor general's office ordered Russian internet providers to block Navalny's blog, chess champion and Putin critic Kasparov's internet newspaper and two other sites, grani.ru and ej.ru, state regulator Roskomnadzor said. The move was the latest evidence of what government opponents see as a crackdown on independent media and particularly the internet, a platform for dissenting views in a nation where state channels dominate the airwaves. Ej.ru editor Alexander Ryklin called it 'monstrous' and a 'direct violation of all the principles of freedom of speech,' More at EFF, and in earlier stories at the The Huffington Post, and Deutsche Welle, which notes, 'This year's report by Reporters Without Borders on World Day against Cyber Censorship condemns Russia as one of the "Enemies of the Internet." "Russia has adopted dangerous legislation governing the flow of news and information and freedom of expression online," it concludes.'"
There a topic that isn't about America? Well can't have that! Spin it to be about America! Redirect all topics to be on America, particularly whining about America!
What's ironic is that the folks who tend to do this, are just as likely to sneer that Americans don't care about anything happening outside the US.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
Normally I like to not try and blame the people for the actions of their leadership, but frankly I've lost all faith in the ability for the majority of the Russian populace to engage in any kind of rational thinking at this point. They are part the problem.
A couple of years back they were out in protest against Putin rigging the vote to put himself back in power and I thought hey, finally, the Russian people are taking responsibility for their state, and trying to deal with their dictator.
Now two years on, an Olympic games, a bit of propaganda, creating a hate target in homosexuals to blame societies ills on (just as Hitler did with the Jews etc.), an attempted annexation of Crimea, and the resurrection of Stalin as a popular deity and suddenly Putin has 70% approval ratings again.
So whilst there are clearly a good number of Russians that still want him out, at this point they're a minority by quite a stretch. It really is the Russian people that are the problem - you might as well just alias the nation as Dumbfuckland now, because it really is a nation mostly full of dumb fucks given the approval they're now giving Putin based on his fascist, dictatorial policies. I thought it was bad enough that my nation, the UK is full of people so easily swayed by populism, bigotry, and general ignorance peddled by the media, but the idiocy of many of my countrymen appears to pale compared to those in Russia. At least whilst our population recently argued against striking Syria by a decent margin. In contrast, the Russians positively support annexing the whole of the Ukraine, not just Crimea with about 59% support on latest polls.
I wouldn't put your faith in the Russian people, they mostly seem to be an extremely fickle, easily swayed bunch and Putin controls the media, so swaying them his way appears trivial.
"Naturally I don't ask them to give up their culture. But I don't want them to force it on unwilling people on territory of Ukraine. This is absolutely inadmissible. "
Yet you want to force it onto them and when you do it it's not inadmissible? You don't see the hypocrisy in that?
"This is the reason Crimea rebelled."
Accept it didn't. In polling in February before this all happened only 41% of Crimeans wanted to join Russia. What's going on in Crimea isn't rebellion, it's Russian occupation - it's forced annexation of Crimea against the will of the people there - you know, that thing that on one hand you're saying is inadmissible, and on the other you're arguing for?
"If Ukrainian state respected Russian people as much Russian Federation respects its own people of different nationalities"
Yeah because it's so nice being Jewish in Russia and suffering attacks from Neo Nazis? It's so nice being Chechnyan in Russia and getting bombed to fuck? Outside of nationalities it's so nice being gay in Russia and being legislated against and beaten to death with the blessing of the state? It's so nice having differing political views than Putin and being beaten, jailed, or killed?
The only thing Russians look after in Russia are straight white Russians who conform to the will of Putin. Anything else and you're fucked.