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Wikimedia Foundation fined for refusing to take down story about military operation

According to court files, the prosecutor's office demanded that the Russian media watchdog (Roskomnadzor) take action after it found an article about the battles near Akhtyrka in February-March 2022, during which children were killed

MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/. The magistrate court in Moscow has levied a fine against the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns the Russian-language Wikipedia, in the amount of 1.5 million rubles ($18,392) for refusing to remove information about the battles for Akhtyrka in the Sumy region during the special military operation in Ukraine, a TASS correspondent reported about from the courtroom of Moscow’s magistrate court department No. 422.

"To find Wikimedia Foundation guilty under part 2 article 13.41 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation (failure of the owner of a website to delete information or a web-page in case the obligation to delete such information, such a web page, is included in the legislation of the Russian Federation) and impose a penalty on this entity in the form of a fine in the amount of 1,500,000 rubles," judge Timur Vakhrameyev said.

According to court files, the prosecutor's office demanded that the Russian media watchdog (Roskomnadzor) take action after it found an article about the battles near Akhtyrka in February-March 2022, during which children were killed. The supervisory authority said that the information in the article was not true. The regulator demanded that the Wikimedia Foundation remove the story, but this was not done. For this reason, a protocol on an administrative case was opened.

During the hearing, a representative of the Wikimedia Foundation demanded that the court dismiss the case and not fine the company. He stressed that the organization cannot be held administratively liable under article 13.41 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation on the territory of Russia, since it is registered in the United States. Also, according to the defense for the Wikimedia Foundation, the prosecutor's office did not indicate which information in the article is not true. Moreover, according to a company representative, certain information in the article was confirmed by UN representatives who visited Akhtyrka after the withdrawal of Russian troops from the area.

In February, the company was fined 2 million rubles ($24,606) for publishing information about the locations of three Russian military units. In April 2022 - 5 million rubles ($61,598) for refusing to remove articles about the events in Bucha, the destruction of the hospital and theater in Mariupol, and the manufacture of gunpowder.

According to Roskomnadzor, banned materials remain on the Wikipedia portal, including false information about what was going on in the special military operation in Ukraine. In this regard, the Wikimedia Foundation will be tagged in search engines as a violator of Russian law.

Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is a non-profit organization registered as a charitable foundation in the United States. The organization is known as a platform for Wikipedia and related projects.

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