East Europe Censorship News

Emily in Paris is a 2020 US/France comedy romance by Darren Star
Starring Lily Collins, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu and Ashley Park

Emily, an ambitious twenty-something marketing executive from Chicago, unexpectedly lands her dream job in Paris when her company acquires a French luxury marketing company - and she is tasked with revamping their social media strategy. Emily's new life in Paris is filled with intoxicating adventures and surprising challenges as she juggles winning over her work colleagues, making friends, and navigating new romances.

Ukraine's minister of culture has been watching Netflix series Emily in Paris -- and he's not happy. Oleksandr Tkachenko shared his frustration about what he considers offensive in the way in which Petra, a Ukrainian character, is portrayed in season 2 of the show.

Tkachenko described Petra, played by Daria Panchenko, as a "caricature." Petra makes a bad impression on Emily when she unapologetically steals clothes from a local mall and encourages her to do the same, before sprinting off onto the streets of Paris.

'Unacceptable' and offensive Tkachenko condemned the storyline. In 'Emily in Paris' we have a caricature of a Ukrainian woman, which is unacceptable. On the other hand, it is also offensive. Will Ukrainians be seen as such abroad? Who steal, want to get everything for free, be afraid of deportation? That should not be the case, he wrote in a post on his official Telegram channel.

Russia's supreme court has ordered the closure of Memorial International, the country's oldest human rights group.

The court ruled Memorial must be closed under Russia's controversial foreign agent legislation, which has been used to censor dozens of NGOs and media outlets seen as critical of the government.

Memorial was founded in the late 1980s to document political repressions carried out under the Soviet Union, building a database of victims of the Great Terror and gulag camps. The Memorial Human Rights Centre, a sister organisation that campaigns for the rights of political prisoners and other causes, is also facing liquidation for justifying terrorism and extremism.

About 100 supporters of the organisation gathered outside the court and Many chanted shame after the verdict was delivered. Police made several arrests.

A Russian court has said it is fining Alphabet's Google 7.2bn roubles (£73m) for what it says is a repeated failure to delete content Russia deems illegal, the first revenue-based fine of its kind in Russia.

The Russian internet censor had ordered companies to delete posts promoting drug abuse and dangerous pastimes and information about homemade weapons and explosives, as well as ones by groups it designates as extremist or terrorist. In addition Russia had also objected to Google blocking its own RT news channels on YouTube.

Google said in an email it would study the court ruling before deciding on further steps.

Russia has imposed small fines on foreign technology companies throughout this year, but the penalty on Friday marks the first time it has exacted a percentage of a company's annual Russian turnover, greatly increasing the sum of the fine. It did not specify the percentage, although Reuters calculations show it equates to just over 8%.

A powerful Russian MP known for homophobic statements and projects has proposed a bill that would classify all depictions of LGBTQ+ relationships in the same banned or restricted categories as pornography.

Vitaly Milonov -- a member of Vladimir Putin's governing United Russia party, and deputy chairman of the Federal Assembly's Committee on Family Affairs, Women and Children -- said that people should have the right to ask the state's regulator to not allow the broadcast of films with LGBTQ+ content.

The announcement coincided with another Russian official's disclosure that he had prepared a catalogue of toxic content, using a system that labels content from completely banned to simply undesirable. Igor Ashmanov, a member of Russia's Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, revealed that he had developed a catalogue to mark so-called 'toxic content' on the internet.

The resource, Ashmanov said, would flag topics such as radical feminism [and] 'child-free' lifestyles, as well as the promotion of homosexuality and bestiality.