Russia starts trial for Bitcoin sites blocking

24.04.2015

The first session of Sverdlovsk Oblast court scrutinizing an appeal petition to consider cryptocurrency websites ban under order by Nevyansk town court illicit started today.

The session was attended by representatives from btcsec.com and bitcoinconf.ru that had previously been blocked by Roskomnadzor with a reference to a court holding.

Also the session was attended by a prosecution office attorney. The prosecution office filed a request to terminate proceedings in the appeal petition as the office did not require the sites’ blocking. Also, the prosecution office believes that site blockage has to be performed on the basis of a particular demand which in fact had not been filed.

Representatives of bitcoinconf.ru noted that their site is not by any means related to cryptocurrency but just distributed news on Moscow Bitcoin conference. Btcsec.com claimed that site blockage is a basis for challenging a court holding.

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Ivan Tikhonov, creator of bits.media, said: “I’m expecting the decision of blocking BTCsec.com to be cancelled as I deem it illicit, and think the whole trial involved evident flaws. One should remember that cryptocurrencies are not banned in Russia for now, and no information concerning them cannot be considered an information forbidden for distribution within the Russian Federation. I believe they stand to win”.

The prosecution office attorney was rejected to terminate proceedings in the petition. The court resolved to perform hearings of the case under general trial jurisdiction. The next session will take place on May 15th.
Back in January ForkLog informed on blockage of sites related to cryptocurrency. Among those blocked there were coinspot.ru (currentlu .io) and bitcoin.org.

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Tags: Bitcoin, censorship, Russia