Officials in Belarus claim a prominent opposition figure found hanged at his weekend home committed suicide.

Oleg Bebenin founded Charter 97, a leading opposition website critical of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Colleagues said they could not believe the father-of-two had killed himself. They pointed out that he had left no note and Charter 97's editor, Natalia Radina, said he had not been having any family or health problems.

He had, she told independent Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvy, been absorbed in his work and campaigning for opposition presidential hopeful Andrei Sannikov.

Most independent media in Belarus have been closed down and the authorities barely tolerate political dissent, correspondents say.

Armed policemen, including masked special-forces officers, have raided the Moscow office of the The New Times, one of Russia's few opposition-minded media outlets.

During the raid, on September 2, Russian police Colonel Stanislav Pashkovsky pressed the magazine's editor in chief, Yevgenia Albats, to hand over recordings of interviews and other material used in a February report on alleged abuse of power by the country's feared OMON riot police.

The magazine posted videos of the raid on its website.

The article in question, entitled Slaves of OMON, cited police sources who alleged that riot police have been given permission to commit abuses when breaking up protests: It was an article about the violations taking place inside Moscow's OMON -- how they are given instructions on how to break up Marches of Dissent, how it is explained to them that supporters of the Russian opposition are the enemies of Russia, Albats said.

The website of the Russian Centre for the Protection of Forestry (Roslesozashchita) has been blocked since 13 August after it contradicted the official government line that brush fires had not reached areas contaminated by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

The agency said fires were reported in the Bryansk region bordering Belarus and Ukraine, where radioactive residue covers large areas.

Officials seem reluctant to comment on the radioactive threat, despite warnings from Greenpeace Russia. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) suggest the website may have been blocked because the information posted was embarrassing for the government rather than incorrect.

Rapper Noize MC, who was jailed for 10 days in Volgograd after mocking local police in a song and an improvised rap at a festival, has released a new song criticising the police.

Launched soon after the artist left jail last week, and entitled 10 Days in Paradise or 10 Days (Stalingrad), the song sarcastically thanks police for the inspiration provided by his time in prison.

The accompanying video shows footage of Russian police brutality, including violence at a demonstration in St. Petersburg on 31 July.

Noize MC, whose real name is Ivan Alexeyev, has included in the song an apology he read out while in prison, which was distributed by the Volgograd police's press service. Alexeyev told Gazeta.ru that the apology was only written and performed because he was threatened with having his charges changed from disorderly conduct to insulting a police officer — an offence punishable by up to one year of correctional labour.

Three Ukrainian television stations stopped broadcasting for an hour late Saturday, in what a protest against what they said was increasing political pressure on journalists.

5 Kanal, TVi and one regional television station are threatened with having their licences taken away, Kiev media reported.

The stations have accused the authorities of reintroducing press censorship. The strike comes amid widespread concerns that press freedom has deteriorated since pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych came to power in February.

On Tuesday the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), a media freedom watchdog, wrote an open letter to Yanukovych, saying it was alarmed at reports of an increase in the number of assaults against journalists and a failure to bring the perpetrators of the attacks to justice.

It also noted an apparent blurring of the lines between government office and private media ownership and said it was particularly concerned about a Kiev court's decision to annul the allocation of broadcasting frequencies to two privately-run TV channels: TVi and 5 Kanal.

Update: Appeal Lost

5th September 2010. Based on article from kyivpost.com

Ukraine's media landscape could be reshaped after Channel 5 and TVi, two small stations providing the last vestiges of independent television journalism, lost a dispute over their frequencies.

A Kyiv appeals court ruled in favor of the U.A. Inter Media Group (Inter), the nation's largest television holding, upholding a lower court decision that analogue frequencies awarded to the station in January were obtained illegally.

At the time, the National Council for Television and Radio awarded Channel 5 with 26 and TVi with 33 analogue frequencies.

The Inter group, owned partly by State Security Service of Ukraine chief Valeriy Khoroshkovksy.

Both TVi and Channel 5 claim the court decision was unfair and marked a return to the era of censorship and political pressure on media, two hallmarks of ex-President Leonid Kuchma's authoritarian tenure from 1994-2005.

That's just what's happened. Two independent channels who managed to withstand political pressure were deprived of the licenses they were awarded within a totally legitimate competition, Mykola Kniazhytsky, TVi executive director said.

Both channels are preparing to contest the appeals court ruling in the High Administrative Court and in the European Court of Human Rights.

Another Mickey Mouse Christ

Two men who organised an art exhibition in Moscow in 2007 have been found guilty by a Russian court of inciting hatred.

Andrei Yerofeyev and Yuri Samodurov had set up the Forbidden Art exhibition at the Sakharov Museum in Moscow.

Both curators were convicted of inciting religious hatred and fined, but escaped prison sentences. The two were ordered only to pay fines of up to 200,000 rubles ($6,500).

The show provoked condemnation from the Russian Orthodox Church, among others, for artworks that included a depiction of Jesus Christ with the head of Mickey Mouse.

There was also a spoof ad for Coca Cola with the slogan This is my blood that visitors looked at through peep holes.

Yerofeyev, an art expert, and Samodurov, the former director of the Sakharov Museum, said they organised the exhibition to fight censorship of art in Russia.

Update: Book of the Banned

19th July 2010. Based on article from freethinker.co.uk
See also article from readrussia.com

Art that a Russian court found blasphemous this week are about to get a much wider audience.

In the wake of the trial of art expert Andrei Yerofeyev and the Sakharov Museum's then-director Yuri Samodurov, a magazine called Russia! has announced its intention to publish a book, The Banned Art, containing the offensive exhibits in January, 2011.

The magazine has already posted pictures of some of the blasphemous pieces featured in Forbidden Art 2006?.

A Georgian television channel said it had lost a court battle accusing a French satellite operator of bowing to Russian pressure and blocking its broadcasts.

The Russian-language Perviy Kavkazky (First Caucasian) channel's editor-in-chief, Ekaterine Kotrikadze, said the French court had ruled against the channel's request to force Paris-based Eutelsat to restore its broadcasts, which were cut in January after a few weeks of test broadcasts.

We disagree with the court's decision and we believe it's wrong. We have not yet decided whether we will appeal the decision, she told AFP: Currently our channel is under re-organisation. We will be back on air by the end of the year via satellite. We do not know yet which satellite will be used, we will soon start holding talks with different satellite operators.

The channel charged that Eutelsat was a tool of Russian censorship because it had stopped transmitting Perviy Kavkazky from its W7 satellite after signing a lucrative contract with Russian satellite company Intersputnik.

Eutelsat denied that it came under any pressure from Moscow and insisted that no contract was in force between it and the state-funded Georgia Public Broadcasting company, which runs Perviy Kavkazky.

The channel provides news bulletins and information programmes focusing on events in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as in Russia's North Caucasus region, challenging Moscow's influence in the strategic region.

A new Belarus Internet censorship law will be applied from September 1.

Access restrictions are as follows:

• The Belarusian State Telecommunication Inspection makes a list of forbidden websites on the ground of proposals of appropriate governmental bodies. Legal persons, individual entrepreneurs and concerned citizens have the right to help the governmental bodies to prepare the lists. An IP address, domain name, or an URL may serve as an identifier of a banned Internet resource. If a Belarusian site is included in the black list, the owner will receive a notice about putting the website on the blocklist.
   
• 4. Websites can also be removed from the blacklist. A decision on removal of the Internet resource identifiers from the restriction list must be taken by the governmental body that earlier put the website on the list.
   
• Information aimed at extremist activity, illicit circulation of weapons, ammunition, detonators, explosives, radioactive, contaminating, aggressive, poisonous, and toxic substances, drugs, psychotropic substances, and their precursors; assisting illegal migration and human trafficking; spreading pornography; promulgating violence, brutality, and other acts prohibited by law is banned

Britain's theatre community comes out against oppression and censorship in Belarus, the last dictatorship of Europe.

Sir Tom Stoppard and actor/director Sam West Has led a protest of high-profile theatre practitioners outside the Belarussian Embassy in London.

They presented an open letter to President Alyaksander Lukashenko of Belarus calling for greater democratic freedom and for an end to censorship of the Internet.

Other signatories include Mark Ravenhill, Howard Brenton, Alan Rickman, Laura Wade, Caryl Churchill, Henry Goodman, Henry Porter, Simon McBurney, Simon Stephens and Lyndsey Turner.

We urge you to allow the people of Belarus the right to express and share their opinions freely, whether this is on the internet or not. We urge you to use your powers to prevent any further repression of citizens who hold alternative, and oppositional, beliefs to you. We urge that the practice of physical abuse and intimidation against any citizen, including those who dare to hold alternative and oppositional points of view, be stopped. Finally, we urge you to protect the right to freedom of assembly in accordance with Article 21 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights to which Belarus is a state party, – the letter says.

Sam West performed an extract of Generation Jeans, a play from the multi-award winning Belarus Free Theatre.

Generation Jeans charts one man's journey as an activist. It captures all of the courage, the humour and the foolhardy determination that you need to resist a totalitarian regime, which makes it perfect for our protest today, says director Clare Lizzimore, co-organiser of the protest.

On Thursday 1st July a new Presidential decree on the Internet comes into force. It gives the authorities greater powers to monitor usage and will enable the Government to restrict or block access to websites that offer independent and alternative sources of information. It has been described as a step in the wrong direction by the European Union. The decree is a clear attempt to curb the freedom of speech and the right to self-expression.

Playwright and co-organiser of the protest, Alexandra Wood says: The internet is a vital tool in communication and should be available to all. Lukashenko's law, imposing censorship on the Internet, particularly affects those in Belarus who oppose his regime, who want to offer the Belarusian people an alternative, which is of course, his intention.

Actor Sam West says: The purpose of theatre and the purpose of the internet is the same: to connect people, to bring them together as a collective entity, an audience, a world. Repressive regimes are rightly frightened of the internet for its ability to put free thinkers in touch with one another and give them inspiration and strength; it's not us and them out there, it's all us. We must oppose any withdrawal of these freedoms as anti-thought, anti-freedom, anti-human.

The protest was in support of the Belarus Free Theatre and is in conjunction with the Global Artistic Campaign in Solidarity with Belarus, founded by playwright, Sir Tom Stoppard.

It was bad enough that an art exhibition attracted the attention of Russia's authorities. It was worse that the exhibition was in Moscow's Sakharov centre and museum, one of the few institutions in Russia that stands squarely behind the tradition of human rights, exemplified by the saintly physicist and dissident for whom it is named.

Now prosecutors have said that they want the organisers of the 2007 Forbidden Art exhibition, the director of the centre, Yuri Samodurov, and Andrei Yerofeev, an art historian, to be sentenced to a three-year jail term for debasing the religious beliefs of citizens and inciting religious hatred.

The prosecutors' move has aroused a furious reaction from the dwindling ranks of Russia's intelligentsia, and in the non-Kremlin media. In an open letter to the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Yerofeev apologises for unintentionally hurting believers' feelings, but also blasts the church for teaming up with hardline officials and rightwing extremists. Which, of course, was one of the messages of the exhibition.

Three years ago one of the leading Russian contemporary art curators, Andrei Yerofeev, organised an exhibition called Forbidden Art, in the Andrei Sakharov centre in Moscow, where he presented a collection of art works banned from previous exhibitions. To draw attention to political censorship Yerofeev put all the works behind a curtain with one hole in it, above human height, so that in order to see the works one had to climb a stool and peep through the hole. Only people who really wanted to see the art works of art were able to. However, Yerofeev, as well as Yury Samodurov, the director of the Sakharov centre at the time, were accused of inciting hatred and insulting religious feelings, and prosecuted.

The exhibit featured several paintings with images of Jesus Christ. In one, Christ appeared to his disciples as Mickey Mouse. In another, of the crucifixion, the head of Christ was replaced by the Order of Lenin medal, the highest award of the Soviet Union.

This week the prosecutors demanded a jail sentence of three years for each of them. The verdict will be announced on July 12th. The trial was instigated by the so called People's council, a movement of militant religious radicals with strong anti-Semitic views which claims to have the official backing of the Orthodox church.

US ambassador to Ukraine John Tefft has warned Ukraine's authorities against a return to media censorship amid growing concerns over press freedoms.

There should be no going back to the old system of government pressure of journalists and media companies, Tefft said during a speech to a Kiev-based think tank.

He noted troubling reports of pressure on journalists and an attack on a regional newspaper editor as recent worrying signs: We must also recognise that some media companies practise self-censorship, which is equally destructive to the principle of press freedom.

Press freedom in Ukraine is seen as one of the few lasting gains of the country's 2004 Orange Revolution that brought pro-Western leaders to power, who were in turn ousted by President Viktor Yanukovych in this year's elections.

Russian police seized 100,000 copies of a book critical of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that activists planned to hand out at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Copies of Putin. The Results. 10 Years on, written by opposition politicians Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov were intended for participants of the forum.

The book, which has a total print-run of one million copies, aims to tell the truth about the real results of the leadership of Putin and the tandem, Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, wrote in his blog.

Nemtsov presented the book about Putin in Moscow on Monday. Last year he published a similar book about Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who won a libel case and forced him to retract a statement about corruption in the city hall.

China may be one of the world's most Internet-repressive regimes. But its Great Firewall is a clumsy and ineffective tool compared with the subtle information control techniques developed over the last few years by Russia and many of the former Soviet states.

That's one of the conclusions of Access Controlled, a new book out from the Open Net Initiative, a consortium of academics focused on free speech and government interactions with the Internet. A sequel to Access Denied, the Open Net Initiative's 2008 report on the state of global Internet censorship, one of the book's theses is that government control of the Internet has shifted from directly blocking sites to slicker ways of repressing dissidents online.

China and Iran still filter the most content online, according to the ONI. In its country-by-country survey of Internet filtering. But while states like Russia and Belarus perform much less of what the ONI calls first generation or Chinese-style filtering, they're increasingly adept at second and third generation control of the Web.

Second generation censorship, as ONI authors Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski define it in an early chapter, includes tricks like requiring Web site owners to register with the government and using the process to weed out dissident sites with red tape, a tactic often used in Kazakhstan and Belarus. In Belarus and Uzbekistan, veracity and slander laws are used as a pretense for shutting down dissident sites.

Reporters Without Borders condemns a Kiev court's decision on 8 June to cancel the licences of TV5 Kanal and TVi, two stations that are regarded as critical of President Viktor Yanukovych's administration, especial TVi, which regularly interviews independent experts or opposition figures who openly criticise the government.

On 7 June, the eve of the court's decision, the journalists at TV 5 Kanal released the text of an open letter to the president claiming they were being harassed by the SBU, Ukraine's main security agency. Calling for the protection of their rights under the constitution, they said they wanted to meet with Yanukovych to explain their fear that their station was about to be broken up.

Their fears were confirmed by the 8 June decision cancelling the allocation of TV broadcast frequencies announced on 27 January, several weeks before the current administration took office. The court, which issued its ruling in response to a legal appeal by the Inter group, withdrew the licences of TV5 Kanal and TVi.

Reporters Without Borders voices its support for the two TV stations, their condemnation of an unprecedented and unacceptable conflict of interests and their call for Khoroshkovky to resign from some of his positions.

The multiple posts held by Khoroshkovky are incompatible in a democracy with the principles of freedom of expression and impartial regulation of the media. Reporters Without Borders also believes that is vital that the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting should be impartial and free of external pressure.

Mykola Knyazhytsky, the head of TVi, and Ivan Adamchuk, the head of TV5 Kanal, said they would appeal against the court's decision.

Update: A special commission

20th June 2010.  Based on article from kyivpost.com

The parliamentary committee for freedom of speech and information has called on the Verkhovna Rada to form a special commission to investigate cases of censorship and pressure on the freedom of speech, as well as cases of the blocking of the professional activity of journalists.

The committee also proposed that the parliament hear reports by the heads of the TVi Channel and the Fifth TV Channel, representatives of the Inter group, Security Service Chief Valeriy Khoroshkovsky, and representatives of the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting regarding the issues of the withdrawal of television frequencies allocated to the Fifth TV Channel and the TVi Channel.

This could take place even [on June 16]. If not, we will insist on hearing [these reports] by the end of the week, said the first deputy head of the committee, Andriy Shevchenko.

Moscow's lawmakers have set their minds to fight xenophobia by banning the media from mentioning the nationality, race and religion of criminals.

The measure, supposedly to tackle the level of hate-crime in the city, is designed to prevent generalizations about certain groups in society. For example, talking about a crime committed by a person from Dagestan, Russian journalists will not be allowed to say Dagestani or coming from North Caucasus, but they would rather refer to a person born in Dagestan.

One of the bill's sponsors, Moscow City Duma Deputy Aleksandr Semennikov, said that generalizations spark extremism in society.

This kind of information often causes a stir in public opinion, especially among people that aren't very tolerant or aware of the consequences of their actions. There are groups that will call for revenge, Semennikov told RT.

Initiated by Moscow's Duma, the bill will now be passed on to federal authorities.

Officials in Belarus have asked the organizers of an upcoming Elton John concert in Minsk to prevent the promotion of homosexuality.

The Public Council for Morality is to study recordings of earlier performances by the British singer to make sure they have no elements inconsistent with the law and morality, the head of the organization said.

We have requested the organizers of the concert to give us records of Elton John's earlier performances, he said.

Nikolai Cherginets said the Council is particularly concerned over the openly gay singer's statement in an interview with a U.S. magazine that Jesus was a super-intelligent gay man.

Elton John will play at the Minsk Arena on June 26 as part of his European summer tour.

The Public Council for Morality was established in 2009 by the Belarusian Orthodox Church and the Writers Union of Belarus, with the support of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Dozens of Ukrainian journalists were wearing T-shirts reading stop censorship at a news conference by President Viktor Yanukovynch in Kiev.

Media concerns regarding freedom of speech are growing in Ukraine since President Yanukovynch's election.

The president assured the media that he shared their concerns. No-one is putting pressure on you or will put pressure on you, he claimed at the press conference.

He read a letter signed by several journalists and asked the security services and interior ministry to investigate the complaints. He even accepted one of the T-shirts via a bodyguard.

Ukrainian television journalists from the private 1+1 and STB channels issued a petition last month, complaining of an increase in censorship on certain subjects.

When Yanukovych was hit on the head last month by a gigantic wreath at a memorial ceremony, officials ordered journalists not to broadcast the footage. But the presidency later admitted they had overstepped the mark.

Russia's ruling party has proposed legislation to increase censorship for children, the BBC Russian service has reported.

TV and radio news programs featuring episodes of violence, destruction, disasters, death and the like should be put off-air during daytime because they are harmful for children's psychology, said the draft legislation proposed by the United Russia party.

The proposed legislation submitted defines daytime as a period from 6am to 10pm.

After 10pm, TV programs should be accompanied with a warning about the dangerous content of the upcoming program.

Dangerous content is defined as those promoting drugs, smoking, alcohol, gambling, prostitution, begging and vagrancy as well as materials that deny family values or provoke people into committing crimes.

The bill proposed that the first and the last pages of printed media should not bear any information that might be harmful for children's health. Otherwise, these editions must be sold in non-transparent covers, as must be adult magazines.

Experts said some definitions in the proposal are too vogue, and if the bill becomes law, it will result in banning nearly all the news programs.

Dismayed by the negative way it is portrayed in computer games, Russia is planning to promote itself with a series of patriotic titles based on the heroic deeds of its soldiers in the Second World War.

The country's parliament is also discussing plans to ban anti-Russian computer games after MPs complained that games, mostly American, portrayed Russians as Cold War stereotypes, villains and alcoholics.

The Russian version of the best-selling Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 game already has a scene cut where gamers shoot innocent passengers at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, but if the parliamentarians get their way it could be banned altogether.

While the MPs cannot stop offending games being made, some want to ban their import. The Duma is considering setting up a commission to decide which games should be illegal to import.

Games that might fall foul of the commission include the German Ulitsa Dimitrova, where gamers play a seven-year-old child in St Petersburg who has to steal, kill and lie in order to buy cigarettes.

A Russian town famed for its crusades against swearing and easy morals is trying to ban heavy metal concerts arguing that they are satanic and ideologically destructive.

Officials in Belgorod, a town some 400 miles south of Moscow, have written to local café, club and restaurant owners asking them to refuse to host heavy metal concerts.

I am not familiar with such music myself but we have been asked to head off any satanic activity, a local official, Vladimir Shatilo, told the daily Kommersant newspaper.

The parents of youngsters who attended such events would never forgive us for (allowing) the performances of people interested in satanic ideology, added another official. He cited recommendations from an infamous Soviet-era psychiatric hospital that said heavy metal music had an ideologically destructive effect on young people.

Some local club owners appeared unlikely to comply. One of them, Oleg Proskokov, told the same newspaper that he planned to hold a number of rock events in the near future and that any officials who tried to interfere would get a punch in the face.

Ukrainian journalists with the Television News Service (TSN), a new program that is broadcast on the 1+1 television channel, have complained that they are being censored during preparation of news materials.

The journalists made the complaint in an open letter posted on the internet website of the Telekritika publication.

We, the journalists of TSN, want to state that censorship is being introduced on the 1+1 television channel. We have been prohibited from covering certain issues and events. Our news materials containing criticism of the current authorities are being taken off air for political reasons, the journalists said in the letter.

The journalists said that they wrote the letter because they understood their responsibility to the society and because they valued their own reputation and refused to go outside the moral framework.

We do not want to be farmhands and propagandists. For us, freedom of speech is not just empty sounds by the foundation of our progression. This is specifically why we re are announcing that we categorically disagree with pressure on freedom of speech, the journalists said in the letter.

We are demanding an immediate end to the manual control of the Television News Service. We are demanding an end to the disgraceful practice of 'directives,' 'valuable instructions,' and bans on one topic or another. We are demanding a return of TSN to the basic principles of journalism: objectiveness, balance, equal distance from all political forces

The journalists said they were considering the possibility of a one-day warning strike if their demands were ignored.

Almost a decade after Turkmenistan's leader banned circuses as alien culture, the circus has reopened in Ashgabat with a show of clowns and elephants watched by the current president.

The Central Asian country's authoritarian and eccentric leader Saparmurat Niyazov, known as Turkmenbashi, closed the circus in 2001 after declaring it alien culture and contrary to the Turkmen mentality.

Niyazov, who died in 2006, also closed cinemas, village libraries and the country's opera and ballet theatre in a bid to erase outside influences from the national culture.

The first show was attended by Niyazov's successor, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov who called for a review of Turkmenbashi's policies after his death and a revival of the banned cultural institutions.

The Belarus Ministry of Information has banned the newspepr Silnye Novosti Gomelya.

An order was signed by minister Aleh Pralyaskouski. He claimed the decision was about work experience of the editor, and his qualification doesn't meet requirements of the guide Positions of periodic press staff.

Director of Pechatnoe Slovo Pyotr Kuznyatsou believes: Denial of registration of a paper is prohibition to profession of a journalist. One cannot get a five-year work experience as an editor if he or she is forbidden to head a newspaper.

According to the journalist association BAJ, at least eight newspapers have now been banned or denied registration.

A browser that bypasses internet censors has become the most popular way to access the Internet in Kazakhstan, a Central Asian state where sites critical of the government are often blocked.

The Norwegian developed Opera browser made by Opera Software has increased its market share sharply in the ex-Soviet state since it began to allow downloads of compressed web pages via a server outside the country, a feature designed to speed browsing.

The Opera browser is now the most popular in the country with a market share of 32%, beating out rival products from Google, Microsoft and Apple, according to statistics for March from Web analytics firm StatCounter.

The new version of Opera introduced last year, Opera 10, allows users to view otherwise inaccessible Web pages using its Opera Turbo feature designed to speed up browsing over slow connections.

Kazakhstan introduced a law last year allowing local courts to block access to Web sites whose content has been deemed illegal, a step that human rights groups say amounts to censorship.

Some of the most popular blogging websites such as Livejournal.com and Google-run Blogger.com are now inaccessible to most of Kazakhstan's 3.2 million Internet users.

The media should be banned from quoting terrorists' statements, according to a deputy from the ruling United Russia party.

Robert Schlegel has submitted a respective draft law to the State Duma.

The suggested amendment to the Law of the Russian Federation On Mass Media would prohibit the reproduction of any materials on behalf of those on a wanted list for terrorism or convicted of terrorist activities.

The move comes a week after two suicide bombings in the Moscow Metro claimed 40 which was then followed by a chain of terrorist attacks in the Russian North Caucasian republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia.

Russian prosecutors have banned the 1925 semi-autobiographical book, saying its outline of racial supremacy encouraged extremist and violent behaviour.

The ban was initiated after a regional office of the prosecutor sought new ways to combat extremism and found the book was being distributed in the Ufa region.

Hitler dictated the book to his aide Rudolf Hess while in prison in Bavaria after the failed Munich Beer Hall putsch of 1923. It sets out his doctrine of German racial supremacy and ambitions to annex huge areas of the Soviet Union.

Mein Kampf has been banned in Germany since the Second World War.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is disturbed by reports that the Kyrgyz government has pressured several radio and television stations to stop carrying programming from the Kyrgyz service of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

At least four private radio stations and one television channel halted RFE/RL programming on March 10, said Tyntchtykbek Tchoroyev, director of the Kyrgyz service. The service, also known as Radio Azattyk, provides both radio and television programming.

The stations had been transmitting the programming since December 2008, when the state broadcaster, the National Television and Radio Corporation (KTR), stopped carrying RFE/RL programs. At the time, KTR said it would resume the broadcasts if RFE/RL agreed to clear its content with the government in advance. RFE/RL would not agree to that condition.

Kyrgyz authorities have recently warned local stations that they may face additional hurdles in their license renewals if they continue to carry Radio Azattyk programming, RFE/RL said in a statement.

Some local stations in southern Kyrgyzstan are still carrying RFE/RL programs, Tchoroyev said.

We are deeply disturbed by reports that Kyrgyz authorities have threatened local stations' licenses should they continue to carry RFE/RL programming, said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova. Media outlets must be free to carry whatever content their listeners, not state regulators, demand. The government of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev must uphold its commitments to press freedom and curb its knee-jerk reaction to criticism in the media.

Update: Harangued by the OSCE

21st March 2010. Based on article from asianews.it

In an official letter, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has urged the Kyrgyz government to stop censoring online media.

Kyrgyz authorities are putting unprecedented pressure on independent media. Ordinary Kyrgyz are also outraged by fee hikes of essential services, encouraging the opposition.

In its letter, the OSCE has called on the Kyrgyz government to respect its international obligations to protect freedom of speech and to restore access to a number of online media sources and to Azattyk Radio (the Kyrgyz Service of RFE/RL).

Similarly, Press freedom violations seem to be increasing in frequency and intensity, Reporters Without Borders and other groups have lamented.

Since 10 March, agencies like ferghana.ru, centrasia.ru and paruskg.info (whose editor Gennady Pavlyuk was murdered last December) have been blocked.

Local sources report that independent media have been pressured not to report certain news or lose their licence. Consequently, many have refrained from publishing articles critical of the government.

The opposition press has also been targeted. All 7,000 copies of the newspaper Forum were seized by the police in Bishkek on 15 March without any explanation, whilst its editor, Ryskeldi Mombekov, and five other journalists were detained.

Update: More Press Repression

4th April 2010. See article from cpj.org

Authorities in Kyrgyzstan should halt their ongoing crackdown on independent and opposition news outlets, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. A Bishkek court suspended a pro-opposition newspaper on Wednesday—the third such suspension this month—while financial police confiscated newsroom computers belonging to an independent Web-based television channel on Thursday, effectively taking it off the air.

We are deeply disturbed by the actions of Kyrgyz authorities to systematically unplug their citizens from independent and opposition news sources, CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said.

On Wednesday, the Oktyabrsky District Court in Bishkek suspended the pro-opposition, Kyrgyz-language newspaper Forum, according to the regional news Web site Ferghana. The court acted on a complaint filed by the Oktyabrsky District Prosecutor's Office in Bishkek, which said a March 30 Forum article contained appeals to forcibly overthrow the constitutional order, the Bishkek-based news agency AKIpress reported.

Prosecutors are continuing to investigate the paper in connection with the piece, titled When the motherland falls upon hard times, may all her sons turn into lightning bolts, said Sultan Kanazarov, Ferghana's Kyrgyzstan bureau chief. Forum has been suspended for the duration of that investigation, he said.

Kazakhstan has created a new centre dedicated to censoring blacklisted websites ranging from pornography to those deemed to promote political extremism, an official announced.

The Central Asian country has been criticised for restricting freedom of expression even as it seeks to woo foreign investment.

The new service, called the centre for computer incidents, is similar to Internet watchdogs that exist throughout the world, the head of Kazakhstan's state communications agency, Kuanyshbek Esekeyev, told parliament. Esekeyev said the authorities had many questions regarding 'religious and political extremism on the Internet.

He said the centre's function would be to monitor websites which have a pornographic or extreme character. At the current time work is being carried out with an entire blacklist of sites which have a destructive character for society.

According to Deutsche Welle, the metal band Rammstein has again managed to achieve worldwide infamy: this time, they've been declared a danger to the citizens of Belarus by that country's officials.

The ominous-sounding Council for Morality announced earlier this week their intent to ban Rammstein from entering the former Soviet republic – claiming that their music promotes violence, masochism, homosexuality and other abnormalities, and could potentially destroy the Belarusian state system.

This came despite assurances from the band's promoters that they do not intend to spread violent, perverse, cruel or Nazi ideology in their concerts.

A prominent photographer and film-maker in Uzbekistan has been found guilty of slandering the nation through her work.

Umida Akhmedova had been facing up to three years in prison for a series of photos and a film portraying people in Uzbekistan as backward and poor.

But after announcing the guilty verdict, the judge said the photographer would automatically be pardoned under an amnesty.

Ms Akhmedova said she would still appeal against the conviction.

Last month the Uzbek government decided to prosecute the photographer for an album of work, published in 2007, depicting rural life scenes in Uzbekistan, and for a documentary film. The film, The Burden of Virginity, focused on the experiences of young women immediately before and after marriage.

But a panel of experts appointed by the government ruled that her work would damage Uzbekistan's spiritual values. The panel concluded in its report that the photo album does not conform to aesthetic demands, a throwback to Soviet jargon, and that it would damage the country's spiritual values.

The International Association of Art Critics (AICA) has launched a campaign in support of Uzbek photographer Umida Ahmedova, who has been charged by the government with defamation, RFE/RL's Uzbek Service reports.

The Paris-based art organization has published an appeal to Uzbek authorities to acquit Ahmedova. The appeal is signed by nearly 1,000 artists, art critics, journalists, and rights activists from around the world.

The AICA appeal calls on the Uzbek government to dismiss the charges against Ahmedova on the grounds that art is not journalism and cannot be viewed as an agent of defamation.

The AICA said it is attempting to draw the attention of the international community and rights organizations to Ahmedova's case. It says that if Ahmedova's case is not stopped, any photo taken on the Uzbek streets could become a pretext for legal charges.

Ahmedova was arrested on December 16 and charged with defamation and damaging Uzbekistan's image with a series of photos and videos she took in remote villages that she used for the documentaries The Burden Of Virginity and Customs Of Men And Women. The films focus on poverty and gender inequality in Uzbekistan.

A raw TV drama about the lives of students in a Russian high school has sparked condemnation from teachers and politicians.

School, which premiered this week on Russia's Channel One, has painted a rough, violent picture of what students endure in school.

The series has depicted fights in school halls, classmates sharing beer and one teen boasting about making a girl pregnant, as well as references to internet porn.

Communist Party deputy Vladislav Yurchik declared the show was planned sabotage against Russian young people and called for its cancellation.

Olga Larionova, head of the Moscow education department, agrees with Yurchik, urging the channel to yank the series.

Valeria Gai Germanika, the young director of the show, says she's just showing reality: School was really like that, the 25-year-old auteur told Agence France-Press.

Channel One says it stands behind the series, releasing a statement that the show aims to understand the problems of schools, not to hide them.

The government of Tajikistan has blocked websites criticising it ahead of the 28th February parliamentary election, telecommunications industry sources have said

The government has a record of stifling dissent by shutting down all critical media, citing tax issues and other irregularities. The West has never judged elections in the poverty-stricken mainly Muslim country to be free or fair.

Following the government's order, access to certain (Web) resources ... has been blocked, said a source at an Internet service provider. A source at another provider confirmed the government was behind the move.

Among blocked websites were centrasia.ru, which publishes regional news and hosts a popular political discussion board, and ariana.su, which focuses on President Rakhmon and his family. Rakhmon wields sweeping powers and mainstream media never criticise him.

The international human rights organisation Reporters Without Borders have made a statement of protest expressing their concern over the plans of the Belarusian government to tighten control over Internet.

The matter concerns the decree On Measures for Revising Use of the National Segment of the World Wide Web which appeared in the press on December 14, 2009. The organisation attracts attention to the fact that the freedom of speech in Belarus is considerably limited even without that.

We must emphasize our concern about this bill, which threatens online free speech and everyone's right to express their views anonymously without fear of government repression, Reporters Without Borders said. After placing most of the traditional media under its control, the regime is pursuing an offensive against new media.

The press freedom organisation added: The president's attempts to be reassuring cannot hide the repressive nature of this bill, which is liable to make netizens censor themselves. It should be abandoned so that Belarus is not added to the list of countries such as North Korea, China and Iran that Reporters Without Borders has identified as Enemies of the Internet.

The scandalous internet law proposal mentions blocking websites by the decision of state organs, identification of web users, responsibility for dissemination of information on the web, and state registration of online media.

According to the first version of the decree, hosting of Belarusian websites is obligatory transferred to Belarus, and in order to access internet even in dial-up mode, Belarusians would have to show passport to the provider first.

Russian Parliament members are weighing legislation that would ban all online adult content during the day.

The nationwide plan would black out all adult content from noon to 6 p.m. and essentially regulate the industry, although it appears any such law would be impossible to police.

Some in the Duma, or Russian Parliament, reason that latchkey kids are able to surf the web unattended while their parents are working during the day. As a result, lawmakers have chosen to ban the content during one-quarter of the day.

But Internet experts point out that filtering content through a software solution does the trick as well.

Lawmakers are planning to vote on the piece of legislation at the end of the month.