The Foundation had been sentenced to a strong fine after a procedure targeting several pages of Wikipedia devoted to the invasion of Ukraine.
Le Monde
The WikiMédia Foundation announced, Monday, June 13, having appealed its conviction by the Moscow court, on April 8, to a fine of around 60,000 euros for “disinformation diffusion”. Russian justice considered that ten pages of Wikipedia in the Russian language, almost all devoted to the invasion of Ukraine, contained “inaccurate information on the special military operation aimed at protecting the popular republics of Donetsk and Louhansk For the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine “, in the words of Roskomnadzor, the Russian Internet regulator.
In the days that followed the invasion of Ukraine, Roskomnadzor had ordered the blocking of many websites and social networks, and strongly strengthened Internet censorship in Russia. Faced with the threats of censorship and trial, the last independent Russian major media, Novaïa Gazetta, had to announce the end of its publication. 2>
Symbolic procedure
“The WikiMédia Foundation considers that the information published on Wikipedia must be protected by freedom of expression and do not constitute disinformation, unlike the conclusions of the court”, wrote the Wikimedia Foundation in a press release. “This court decision implies that information sourced and verified, but which contradict the statements of the Russian government constitutes disinformation,” writes the head of legal affairs of WikiMédia, Stephen Laporte. “We ask the justice to return to its decision for the benefit of the access of all and all to knowledge and freedom of expression.”
The chances of a cancellation of the decision of the Moscow court seem extremely weak, in a context where the repression against the opponents of the war gives no signs of slowdown. This symbolic procedure also aims to challenge the fact that a state like Russia can bring trials to the Wikimedia Foundation, which finances the different versions of the online encyclopedia, but is not the publisher, in the legal sense . “The WikiMédia Foundation considers that Russia has no jurisdiction on the Foundation,” wrote the press release.