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Russian media watchdog bans four Wikipedia articles on drugs

Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service has published a list of five Russian-language Wikipedia articles it believed should be blocked

PHNOM PENH, November 24. /TASS/. There are no plans to fully block Wikipedia in Russia, although some pages may be blocked due to requirements of Russian legislation, Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov said on Tuesday.

"As far as I remember, the talk is about articles containing information about the methods of making narcotic drugs," the minister said.

"If our [Federal] Drug Control Service has indeed passed an official decision that this information is referred to the category of unlawful data, then Roskomnadzor [Russian media watchdog] will, of course, block these pages. There is no talk about fully blocking this web resource," the communications minister said.

This issue depends on how the Russian legislation is observed, he added.

"There is a clearly formulated law and it must be strictly observed on the territory of Russia. That is why, if there is information that is referred to outlawed data from the viewpoint of Russian legislation, then Roskomnadzor takes all measures assigned to its competence," the communications minister said.

As TASS reported earlier, Roskomnadzor published a list of five Wikipedia articles whose content was recognized as unlawful by the Federal Drug Control Service.

Specifically, the Federal Drug Control Service has found that some sections in these articles contain information on the sequence of operations for preparing and using narcotic drugs.