As the Kasparov.ru online newspaper reports, internet providers in the region were ordered to limit user access to the IP address used by the “Revinform” online news agency.  When two providers complied, some 63% of the republic’s residents lost access to all blogging content on LiveJournal.  Authorities were apparently unaware that the shut-down, which affected thousands of bloggers, would be so wide-reaching.

The order to close the news blog came after a court in the capital of Ufa deemed the site to be extremist.  The case was launched against the blog after it reprinted articles from the Maydan newspaper documenting corruption among regional officials.

The online newspaper’s editorial office said it considers the court decision unlawful and politically motivated, and has since released a mirror website for its content.

Revinform publishes both original news content and reprinted material dedicated to local news in Bashkortostan.  The site is run by the “Revinform” News Agency, which describes itself as “news from Bashkiria without censorship.”  According to an unnamed source, the news agency is controlled by two of Bashkortostan’s opposition leaders, Ramil Bignov and Robert Zagreyev.

Bashkortostan has a history of blocking internet access to opposition websites, and a similar court order was used against the Ufa Gubernskaya (Ufa Gub) opposition portal in March of this year.  At the request of prosecutors, all 11 of the region’s internet providers cut access to both Ufa Gubernskaya and a number of other independent news sites identified by officials as “extremist.”

Militsiya officers, who did not have any formal authorization to confiscate the publication, told shop owners that the magazine contained unlawful obscene content.

Sellers of the magazine were also being called in for questioning, and were told they would have criminal responsibility if they continued carrying the publication.

It is worth noting that the Russian edition of Maxim was officially registered with the necessary federal agencies on February 18th 2002. Officials in Bashkortostan, however, said they were not subject to the Russian ministries. “We have a Bashkiria Ministry of Culture, which believes that this pornography cannot be sold everywhere,” one of the magazine’s sellers was reportedly told.

The currently active law “On Mass Media” forbids the production and trafficking of materials that promote pornography. However, the Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications recently prepared draft legislation that would allow the sale of erotic and pornographic products, excluding pornography that involves violence, minors, the deceased, symbols and architecture of the state, and animals.

Still, punishment for creating and selling pornography is mild, and sentences are light. Furthermore, the laws see little distinction between pornography involving children versus that involving adults, and this has led to an international reputation for Russia as a haven for child pornography.

Maxim, by some estimated that most popular men’s magazine in Russia, features images of scantily clad celebrities and models.  In the Russian edition, a very small portion of those photos portray nudity.

According to statements by community leaders, armed and camouflaged officers burst into the homes of local muslims on the morning of April 3rd. The officers allegedly used force against women and children, and seized religious literature from the homes. Over 30 people were arrested across the region, on charges of involvement in the banned pan-islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir party.

Those arrested maintain that their interrogators mocked and threatened them, exerting both physical and psychological pressure. They added that the police broke from standard protocol during the questioning, and documented the sessions very poorly (for instance, dates and times were excluded from the paperwork).

The community does not exclude the possibility that the arrests followed the script developed in the case of Said Bayburin, an area imam who has been repeatedly vilified by authorities.

Said Bayburin, an imam from Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, was initially detained in May of 2007 by traffic police, who claimed they discovered narcotics and explosives in his car. After his attorney, Svetlana Avdzhaeva, managed to prove that the contraband was planted in the vehicle, Bayburin was accused on new charges of distributing pornography. Finally, after Avdzhaeva disproved the second charges, officials changed their story again, accusing the imam of distributing extremist religious literature. Bashkortostan court officials then attempted to remove Avdzhaeva from the case, and appealed to Moscow to have her disbarred.

The central Qualifications Commission, finding no unlawful acts on the part of the attorney, twice dismissed the Ufa court’s requests. Ignoring their rulings, an Ufa judge then filed a third recommendation to disqualify Avdzhaeva as an attorney.

Flyura Bayburina, the spouse of the arrested imam, said one reason for her husband’s arrest was “the desire of [local] agencies to report the great work being done on preventing terrorism to their higher-ups.”

In preparation of the 450th anniversary of Bashkortostan joining Russia, which was attended by President Vladimir Putin, the federal budget doled out great sums for maintaining security. “Since there weren’t and aren’t any extremists or radicals prepared for a terrorist act in Bashkiria, it was necessary to create this myth,” Bayburina said.

Some other experts proposed that the arrest of a popular imam like Said Bayburin could be connected with a power struggle within the Central Spiritual Directorate of Muslims in Russia. The group, one of Russia’s major muslim organizations, is based out of Ufa.