The small newspaper based in Kirkenes, Norway, is again on the agenda of Russian censorship authorities. It was blocked by media regulator Roskomnadzor already in early 2019. This week, it got double-blocked by the country’s General Prosecutor.
The online newspaper that publishes in both English and Russian was notified about the decision on Saturday the 29th of October. In a letter, the General Prosecutor’s office gives the Barents Observer 24 hours to delete all “illegal information.”
According to the prosecutors, the newspaper publishes “unreliable public information aimed at destabilising society and the political situation in the Russian Federation.” […]
The Barents Observer is based in Kirkenes, Norway, and covers Arctic and Russian developments. That includes economy, society and national security. Since Russia’s onslaught on Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, the newspaper has closely followed the country’s growing militarisation, nationalism and crackdown of the media and civil society. […]
The newspaper’s domain name was shortly later added to a federal list of blocked websites. A number of more media were added to the list on the same day, among them the Russian version of the Moscow Times. The blocking will have little practical consequences for Barents Observer. It is from before blocked in Russia, and Russians need to use VPN or visit the newspaper’s mirror domain to get access. Läs artikel