The court has legitimized the blocking of a local activist Gregory Kablis' account on “Vkontakte” social network for the entries on the People's Assembly that happened after the arrest of the republic ruling elite in September, 2015, and has denied the compensation for moral harm to him. The court session took place in April 5, as the “7x7” correspondent reported.
At the final hearing, the court found that Kablis' entries called for participation in an unsanctioned public event and their blocking was legitimate.
"Restricting access not to the particular entry but to the whole account is also rooted into the law, since, according to it, that is the access to the web page as such which pertains to restricting, and this is comparable to the generally available Internet content distribution in real time”, as stated in the judicial decision.
The judge also found that Kablis has a possibility to “create and broadcast other information resources”, and therefore the claim upholding is to be denied.
The activist's attendant, a lawyer Ernest Mezak, told that several days before the final trial “Vkontakte” had unblocked Kablis' account on the social network.
As Mezak explained during the previous trial, the disposition of blocking the social network account was illegitimate since the administrators were able to block a particular entry not the whole personal web page containing a lot of personal data.
Another point litigated by the plaintiff was the infinite nature of blocking. In Kablis' opinion, there is no point to keep the post blocked already the day after the event actually took place, but his account remained blocked even afterwards. On the basis of the hearing of March, 16 the court has sent a request to social network “Vkontakte”'s owner asking if there is a possibility to block particular entries.
In September, 2015, after the sensational arrest of the former head of Komi Republic Viacheslav Gayzer and other members of the regional government, Gregory Kablis posted three entries calling Syktyvkar inhabitants for a discussion of the ruling elite detention at People's Assmbley.
At the request of Roskomnadzor, under the threat of blocking the “7x7” editorial office had to delete three of his blog entries. The authority pushed the point that Kablis invited everyone to an unsanctioned and, therefore, illegitimate public event. At the same time, it has transpired that the Prosecutor-General’s Office demanded to block Kablis' account on “Vkontakte” from the social network office, and that has been done.
The activist seized the court to demand restoring the entries and the account, as well as to get paid the compensation for moral harm of 300.000 rubles.
