Roskomnadzor has forced Open Russia to remove an article about a memo for tourists travelling to Crimea from its website.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced that the Open Russia editorial team was forced , under threat of being blocked, to purge its site of the offending material, which included a memo, penned by the Consumer Rights Protection Society and banned  by the Presecutor’s Office, for Russians wishing to travel to the Crimea.

“Citing the orders of the Prosecutor’s Office, Roskomnadzor demanded that Open Russia remove from its website ‘extremist’ material containing legal analysis and recommendations for  Russian citizens in connection with the situation in Crimea,” said MBK. “It’s funny when legal analysis and advice frightens a ‘law enforcement’ structure. My attitude to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation is well-known – I believe this department, with its current ideology of “serving its lord” rather than serving the country, to be unconstitutional. And I’m also familiar with their methods, predicated on force rather than on the law. Which is why I proposed that the site’s editorial staff remove the material. I hope that anybody who found it interesting managed to copy it in time.”

“It should be noted that in the notice of termination of access to the resource, the demand of the Prosecutor’s Office is dated June 22, while the material that provoked such a high-strung reaction was published online on June 23,” the editorial team said in a statement. “Nevertheless, we’re removing the material. We hope that forward-thinking readers will find a way to read it and see for themselves that it does not, in any way, shape or form, call for violation of the integrity of the Russian Federation.”

Roskomnadzor had taken issue with an article entitled “What awaits Russian tourists on the way to Crimea: the Consumer Rights Protection Society version and reality”. The CRPS memo , which had previously been included in a list of extremist materials warns Russians that Ukraine considers Crimea its own territory, and that persons visiting it without the permission of the Ukrainian authorities could be deemed to be violating Ukrainian law. This in turn, states the CRPS  memo, may result in criminal prosecution and issuance of international wanted notices for citizens of the Russian Federation.  The Open Russia article included an analysis comparing the account in the memo to the real-life circumstances of a trip to Crimea from Russia.