St. Petersburg City Court confirmed that the online community shall be blocked for insulting the feelings of Orthodox believers
February 16, 2016. The judicial panel of the St. Petersburg City Court (Russia) dismissed the appeal of the representatives of LLC Sarafanka (enjoys the rights on the trademark MDK – “IF”) concerning blocking of the popular online community VKontakte as Interfax reports.
The chairman of the judicial panel announced that the decision of Smolny District Court of October 27, 2015 shall remain in full force and effect and dismissed the appeal.
Earlier the press service of the Prosecutor’s Office of St. Petersburg reported that the Community MDK revealed “facts of public desecration of religious and liturgical literature, objects of worship, ideological symbols.” In addition, it contained information that adversely affected the mental state and behavior of adolescents.
The investigation of the online community was carried out by appeal of a citizen, who pointed out on systematic distribution of the content insulting the feelings of believers.
In August 2015 the representatives of the supervisory authority appealed to the Smolninskiy District Court of St. Petersburg and demanded to deny access to the Internet community MDK in the social network VKontakte. The court satisfied the claim by its decision of October 27, 2015.
The virtual community MDK in VKontakte has more than 7 million subscribers and is one of the most popular in the Russian segment of the Internet.