On April 15, Russian authorities made the decision to censor the entire rsf.org domain site without any prior notification to RSF, an organization that has never had a branch in Russia. The reasons for the blocking of the site have not been provided, according to Roskomsvoboda, an NGO that monitors Internet censorship. RSF’s site is now amongst the more than 1.7 million URLs that have been blocked in Russia, which includes sites of numerous media outlets.
In addition to the censorship of the site, Russian propaganda mouthpieces such as Aleksandr Kots, a war reporter for the pro-Kremlin tabloid Komsomolkaya Pravda, have started spreading falsehoods about RSF. Kots claimed that RSF receives funding from American intelligence services and has consistently smeared Russia in its annual freedom of speech ratings. However, he made these accusations without first checking RSF’s financial report, which clearly lists all of its funding sources.
Russian authorities have been cracking down on free speech and independent media outlets in recent years, and this latest action is just another example of their efforts to stifle dissenting voices. However, despite the censorship, there are ways for people to access RSF’s content: they can visit the RSF mirror site by clicking here. This site allows users to view all of RSF’s articles and resources without any interference from Russian authorities or propaganda mouthpieces like Kots.