Stories from RuNet Echo from March, 2019
Russian regulators ask VPNs to block blacklisted websites, but most have refused
This defeats the purpose of a VPN, a technology used primarily to help people access censored websites.
Russian journalist forced to resign for Telegram channel critical of St. Petersburg authorities
Journalist Maria Karpenko says her editor confronted her about co-running a Telegram channel critical of St. Petersburg authorities.
‘Blood feud’ against Chechen blogger is the culmination of a months-long, unusually frank conversation about a buried past
Heated exchanges provide a rare glimpse into painful and conflicted issues that are burning hot in today’s Chechnya, ten years after the official conclusion of the Second Chechen War.
Teen theatre production banned by Russian authorities for promoting ‘non-traditional family relations’
Russia has recently passed a series of socially conservative laws targeting activists, advocacy groups and online media for anything that can be construed as "promoting homosexuality to minors."
Russia sends an official implicated in a sexual harassment scandal to the 2019 UN Commission on the Status of Women
Leonid Slutsky’s appointment as the head of a national delegation to a global forum on the status of women can only be regarded as an act of cruel trolling.
Russia’s latest ‘anti-fake news law’ is so bad even Kremlin pranksters hate it
Provisions of the new law make it clear that its real target are the online news outlets still not fully controlled by the state or its subsidiaries.
Queer women in Russia’s North Caucasus ‘face sexual violence, forced marriage, and murder’
Out of the 21 women interviewed by QWNC, eight knew someone among their friends, relatives, or neighbours killed by their male family members for behaviour that "humiliated the family."
Russian rocket Soyuz launches the first OneWeb satellites, tethered to the ground by restrictive legislation
Russians' hopes for censorship-free online access crashed and burned after the authorities imposed strict regulations and full government control of the pioneering satellite Internet program.