Kiev, Ukraine. In moves that will surprise nobody in this part of the world, the “liberal-democratic” government of Petro Poroshenko announced it’s next target of internet censorship, will be anything related to the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics.
First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s representative in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group for the settlement of the situation in Donbass, Iryna Gerashchenko, considers it now necessary to block all websites of certain areas of Donetsk and Lugansk regions for violation of Ukrainian “legislation.”
Which is interesting, given both regions are no longer part of Ukraine, have declared independence with elected leaders and legislative bodies, each pursuing integration with the Russian Federation currently.
“The next stage is to block all the websites of Donbass for violation of Ukrainian legislation, spreading ethnic hatred, undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” she wrote on her Facebook page on Tuesday.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko following a decision by the National Security and Defense Council banned Russian social media sites and news outlets that were targeted by anti-Russian censors. The decision is part of a larger set of sanctions against Russia designed to destroy internet freedom in the Ukraine.
The new ban affects not only Russia’s equivalents of Facebook called Vkontakte (aka VK) Odnoklassniki and Yandex. But now sites related to the “daily function of government, entertainment, social contact like Facebook used by those in Donbass and anything related to the Donbass region not in harmony with Ukraine’s control of the region.”
A United Nations expert has called on the Government of Ukraine to restore internet services to predominantly Russian-speaking parts of the country which have been cut off in “an appalling violation of their right to freedom of expression.”