The International Committee of the protection of press freedom and journalists’ rights is extremely concerned by the fact that shortly after the purchase of Russian-speaking segment of the Russian businessmen popular blog service livejournal.com a dramatic escalation of blocking access to this service for clients of the service, who hold political views, unwanted Russian government.
The International Committee of the protection of press freedom and journalists’ rights and believes that discrimination against dissidents clearly demonstrates the accountability of the present administration of the Russian-speaking segment of LiveJournal Kremlin administration, on the eve of parliamentary and presidential elections, which is seeking the destruction of freedom of speech in Russian segment of the Internet.
The International Committee of the protection of press freedom and journalists’ rights requires the Russian government an immediate end to such practices put pressure on freedom of expression, which has nothing to do with the declared government policy of Russia toward democracy. The Government of Russia should be borne in mind that any election that takes place in an atmosphere fear and intimidation, without the possibility of free expression of alternative points of view, under no circumstances can not be considered neither citizens of Russia, nor the international community neither free nor fair.
The original of this document (in Russian) is available at pressguard.arbat.name