Russian court blocks atheist social networking site for insulting religious believers

A Russian atheist social networking site has been blocked by court ruling. It was reported that the networking site insulted the sensibilities of many religious believers.

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MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - The Russian social networking page, called "There is no God," had more than 26,000 subscribers.

The page went offline across the entire country. According to the page's representative, the action was done on the grounds of a court ruling from the mainly Muslim North Caucasus region of Chechnya in May 2015.

The message on the blocked webpage read, "The community has been blocked due to the possible violation of the site's rules."

The court decision, published by Russian media, accused the page of publishing materials that could "insult the feelings of Orthodox Christians." According to the prosecutor's office in Chechnya, a conservative Muslim republic, governed very strictly by Ramzan Kadyrova, had "uncovered materials during monitoring of the Internet which insult the feelings of the faithful."

The materials referred to were uploaded pictures that mocked religion, especially those emphasizing the Russian Orthodox Church. For example, a cartoon illustration of Jesus asking a surgeon during a hospital operation, "I created this cancer, how dare you remove it?," and the surgeon saying, "Shut up Jesus."

According to the Russian media referee Roskomnadzor, that collects an index of blocked websites, they were only performing the court ruling by ordering VKontakte to block the page. The exact materials which were deemed insulting were not clearly identified and the organizers of "There is no God" cannot be reached for their statements.

Kadyrov supervises more conservative rules in Chechnya and previously called together a massive rally in January against French magazine Charlie Hebdo, which published cartoon illustrations of the Prophet Mohammed.

Under the headship of ex-KGB agent President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Orthodox Church's power in official groups has widened very intensely.

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