Istorychna Pravda banned in Crimea

In the Russian-occupied Crimea access to the Istorychna Pravda (Historical Truth) newspaper has been restricted.

“Editorial staff of the Istorychna Pravda received numerous reports that access to our website has been limited in the Russian-occupied Crimea. In most cases the error “403 (Forbidden!)” is displayed when trying to visit the website”, – said in a statement of the online newspaper.

“It seems that this has happened due to the unofficial ban and Crimean providers are imitating the error of site unavailability. Editorial staff of the Istorychna Pravda has not received any messages, warnings or threats from the occupation authorities”, – said the editorial staff.

Editorial staff stated that since the summer of 2016 users have repeatedly reported problems when accessing the website.

Istorychna Pravda considers these actions to be a restriction of freedom of speech and the right to free access to information.

“We publicly appeal to the national and international human rights organizations to influence the Russian government authorities to remove all prohibitions and restrictions to access our website in the Russian-occupied Crimea”, – said in a statement.

As a reminder, in the second half of 2016 the Human Rights Information Centre has recorded 10 cases of blocking access to the online resources. Krym.Realiyi, Sobytia Kryma, Meridian Sevastopol, Chernomorka, Obozrevatel, ATR channel, Hromadske Radio, Apostrophe, StopFake, BlackSeaNews and others were subjected to blocking.