Censorship is controlled by the Government of Russia and by civil society in the Russian Federation, applying to the content and the diffusion of information, printed documents, music, works of art, cinema and photography, radio and television, web sites and portals, and in some cases private correspondence, with the aim of limiting or preventing the dissemination of ideas and information that the Russian state or public opinion consider to be a danger.Цензура СМИ в России: за и против
Russian Federation legislation on the mass media defines censorship as a "requirement, vis-à-vis media editors, officials, state bodies, organizations, institutions or public associations, to coordinate, prior to their distribution, the messages and documents to be broadcast as well as the obligation to prohibit, where appropriate, their broadcast in whole or in part".Статья 3. Недопустимость цензуры
The constitution of the Russian Federation prohibits censorship in paragraph 5 of Article 29.Конституция Российской ФедерацииСтатья 3. Недопустимость цензуры However, there are in fact many cases of censorship of works and limitation of the freedom to disseminate information from the public authorities, public organizations, and groups of citizens who feel offended and organize their self-defense. There are also two cases of censorship by local authoritiesПавел Дуров аргументировал отказ «выдать» ФСБ создателей групп, поддерживающих Евромайдан // «Собеседник», 17 аvril 2014—in 2006 and 2012—which have been recognized by Russian courts as such.
General problems of censorship in Russia
Subject matter and agenda
In March 2008, Vladimir Vladimirovich Pozner, a journalist with the Russian state television channel Perviy Kanal, speaking at a meeting of the Russian Citizens' Federation on the issues of morals and ethics on national television, said that there is no freedom of expression in Russia.Познер рассказал о цензуре на телевидении // «Газета. Ru» 27.03.2008 20:20 In 2011, Pozner acknowledged that there was a stop-list on Russian television, that is to say a list of names of people who should not be invited to television. Thus, since 2010, access to federal television has been made inaccessible to Boris Nemtsov, Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Edward Limonov,Posner constate la mort du journalisme professionnel en Russie Познер констатировал смерть журналистики в России как профессии Alexey Navalny. According to journalist and politician Alexander Nevzorov, 2014 was the year in which censorship reached its highest level during the post-Soviet period. "It's magical, violent, insane and stupid in the highest degree.".Alexandre Nevzorov ne craint pas la censure/Александр Невзоров. Не бойтесь цензуры! Радуйтесь!|Snob. 28.04.2014 Sarkis Dabrinian agrees with him as a defender of human rights: "Censorship is back in the country" (June 2014). La censure a fait son retour au paysNet Lawyer from Russia: «Censorship Actually has Returned to the Country» | JNews, June 17, 2014. In June 2015, Izvestia publishes an article of the Minister of Culture, Vladimir Medinsky, entitled "Who does not feed his culture, will go to feed the foreign army ". At the head of the article, the Minister of Culture declares that the state must not only subsidize culture, but also follow the content created through these subsidies, and systematically encourage only projects that reflect the values of the conservative majority of the world population. Medinski emphasizes the negative effect in Russia of political censorship and considers that the role of the bureaucracy is to guarantee the financial, administrative and legal viability of the rules according to which the state does not limit the artist in his creation, but controls if its production is not offensive to citizens. As an instructive example, the minister cited the dismissal of the director of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater Boris Mesdritch, after the scandal of Timofei Kuliabin's staging of Richard Wagner's opera Tannhäuser (opera).
Russia has put in place a special procedure for productions and productions that are inscribed or withdrawn from the state budget accounts, and the fact is also that the State orders works on theme, says Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the President of Russia. Reacting to these ministerial directives, director Andrei Zvyagintsev said in October 2016 that: "Orderly officials castrate artistic creation". The laureate of the Venice Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival call Peskov's principles of public art market rules, which means that officials spend state money on films and performances in the interests of the public. of the state itself. With this conception, Dmitry Peskov forgets it is not their money available to its officials, but taxpayers' money.Le mauvais rêve des commandes de l'État. Ce dernier peut-il interférer dans le travail de l'artiste demande Zviaguintsev ?/Коммерсантъ, 26 октября 2016. Дурной сон госзаказа. Режиссёр Андрей Звягинцев о том, может ли государство вмешиваться в работу художника They decided once and for all that they knew better what people need than these people themselves and pay miserable productions with taxpayers' money. Armen Djigarkhanian calls censorship, the financial dependence of Russian theater that significantly influences the repertoire.
Media, communication and education controls
In October 2016, at the Congress of the Union of Theater Artists of Russia, Konstantin Raikin condemned the interference of the State, public organizations and groups of citizens offended in the cultural life of the country under the guise of the words Patrie, spirituality, morality. He describes these phenomena as a return to Russia of the infamous censorship of Stalin's time in the USSR.
There are people in Russia who say they are offended and try to tell the artists what to do. This is reflected by the popular artist of the USSR Oleg Tabakov. About this public censorship he notes that "these people got the idea that if the government does not censor, then they have to control the art themselves". Tabakov is convinced that the methods of these spies of censorship do not create the conditions for the appearance of an appropriate art. The censorship of Russian creativity against Raikin, Zviaginsev and Tabakov was also condemned by Vladimir Vladimirovich Pozner, Yevgeny Mironov (actor) and Sergey Bezrukov. The problems related to the arrival of censorship and the moralization of artistic creation were discussed in November 2016, at a meeting of theater directors, at the deputy director of the Administration of the President of Russia, Sergei Kirienko. Among the statements of support for censorship media attention has focused on the provocative statements of biker Aleksandr Zaldostanov and those of Ramzan Kadyrov at the head of Chechnya. The idea that Zaldostanov wants to pass is that freedom is only a scheming of the spirit of evil: "The devil always wants to try by freedom! But under the guise of this freedom Raikin wants to turn the country into a sewage dump. He is supported by Kadyrov unhappy that "a certain caste arrogates to itself the right to offend the religious feelings of tens of millions of Orthodox and Muslims by stating that in art everything is allowed".
On 1 August 2014, the bloggers law came into effect, which, even after the adoption of another text, makes it possible to apply prison sentences for extreme cases.
The Freedom House organization ranks Russia in countries where the internet is not free. According to this organization, the situation of the Russian Internet (Rounet) tends to worsen in the area of censorship. The main restrictions on the Internet in the Russian Federation are related to anti-terrorism measures. Censorship monitors and blocks, where appropriate, LGBT communications, Donbas-related topics, extra-parliamentary political opposition, nationalist-oriented messages, and child pornography. All over Russia, according to the same organization, blockages of unwanted sites occur, destruction of their content, pressure from political and economic authorities on online publications, or even cyberattacks against independent media31. About 60% of Russians believe that censorship is essential, but only 25% of respondents for personal websites and publications, according to the Levada Analytical Center. The number of supporters of censorship on the internet tends to grow in Russia.
In November 2016, the Minister of Culture of Russia, Vladimir Medinsky said that in Russia, there is no form of censorship and that the discussions on this issue come from the financial, family, creativity of prominent people in the culture Russian.
On 2 December 2016, at a joint meeting of the Council for Culture and Arts and the Council for the Russian Language, President Vladimir Putin states that "the principle of the freedom of artistic creation is absolutely immutable". He considers that "attempts to interrupt performances and exhibitions are totally unacceptable and he guarantees that force will remain in the law to prevent such acts". At the same time, Putin reminds artists that there is a border between the offending epate and the artistic activity.
On 4 March 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill introducing prison sentences of up to 15 years for those who publish "knowingly false information" about the Russian military and its operations, leading to some media outlets in Russia to stop reporting on Ukraine or shutting down their media outlet. Although the 1993 Russian Constitution has an article expressly prohibiting censorship, the Russian censorship apparatus Roskomnadzor ordered the country's media to only use information from Russian state sources or face fines and blocks.
As of December 2022, more than 4,000 people were prosecuted under "fake news" laws in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said that "These new laws are part of Russia's ruthless effort to suppress all dissent and make sure the [Russian] population does not have access to any information that contradicts the Kremlin's narrative about the invasion of Ukraine." In February 2023, Russian journalist Maria Ponomarenko was sentenced to six years in prison for publishing information about the Mariupol theatre airstrike.
At least 1,000 Russian journalists have fled Russia since February 2022.
In early June 2022, the Svetlogorsk City Court in the Kaliningrad region ruled that a list of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine, published by privately owned news websites, constituted "classified information" and its publication could be considered a criminal offense.
On 5 September 2022, Russian journalist Ivan Safranov was sentenced to 22 years in prison in relation to the "treason" charges. Russian daily newspaper Kommersant called the charges of treason "absurd". In June 2019, Kommersant was accused in Russian courts with disclosing state secrets; according to BBC News, the case was based on an article co-authored by Safronov about Russian sales of fighter jets to Egypt.
In March 2024, Russian authorities arrested six journalists working for independent Russian outlets, including Antonina Favorskaya, who worked for Sota.Vision and filmed the last video of Alexei Navalny before his death. Sergey Lukashevsky, director of the Sakharov Center, told DW that "Independent journalism in Russia is, in fact, absolutely prohibited. All really independent media have to work from abroad."
In April 2024, Russian journalists Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin, who had worked for Deutsche Welle and other international media in the past, were arrested by Russian authorities on charges of "extremism". Forbes Russia journalist Sergey Mingazov was arrested on charges of spreading "false information" about the Russian military.