OOO FLAVUS AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT
supposed breach by removing the offending content. By failing to specify
the URL of the webpages they considered problematic, the Russian
authorities acted in an arbitrary manner which prevented the applicants from
making an informed choice between taking down or modifying the specific
content and formulating a legal objection to the Prosecutor General’s
demand by reference to particular webpages.
33. To the extent that the grounds for the blocking measure transpired
from the Prosecutor General’s blocking request, www.ej.ru and grani.ru
were held liable for writing approvingly of protests and public performances
in support of the defendants in the Bolotnaya case. The Prosecutor General
interpreted those articles as amounting to calls for participation in
unauthorised public events. The Court has previously found that the concept
of “public events held in breach of the established procedure” in section
15.3 is excessively broad. It allows the Prosecutor General to impose a
blocking order for any breach of the procedure for conducting public events,
no matter how trivial or innocuous, without having to establish a risk of
disorder or of any real nuisance to the rights of others (see Kablis, cited
above, § 93). It has also found that the Prosecutor General invoked that
particular ground to target content which did not feature any such calls
(ibid., §§ 98-101). Both findings are applicable in the circumstances of the
present case.
34. The public protest which had been held in 2012 at Bolotnaya Square
against allegedly rigged presidential elections had resulted in a stand-off
between protesters and police, and led to multiple sets of penal proceedings
against participants (see Frumkin v. Russia, no. 74568/12, §§ 81-142,
5 January 2016; Yaroslav Belousov v. Russia, nos. 2653/13 and 60980/14,
§§ 155-83, 4 October 2016; and Razvozzhayev v. Russia and Ukraine and
Udaltsov v. Russia, nos. 75734/12 and 2 others, §§ 274-99, 19 November
2019). For many years afterwards, ongoing trials were a matter of intense
public interest in Russia. Court hearings were attended by members of the
public and politicians; some of them were arrested by the police, without
justification, on the charge of participation in an unauthorised public event
(see Navalnyy v. Russia [GC], nos. 29580/12 and 4 others, §§ 35-42 and
125-26, 15 November 2018). The applicants’ media outlets, www.ej.ru and
grani.ru, reported on the developments in the proceedings and the arrests
made by the police, consistent with their journalistic duty to keep the public
informed on issues of general interest and to offer different perspectives,
including those which may be critical of official policy (see Sürek and
Özdemir v. Turkey [GC], nos. 23927/94 and 24277/94, § 61, 8 July 1999).
The Prosecutor General’s blocking request failed to identify any parts of the
publications mentioning planned public events, whether authorised or
otherwise, or inviting the public to participate in them (contrast with Kablis,
cited above, § 102). Voicing support for people who had been put on trial in
connection with the Bolotnaya events or for those who found ways of
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