MOSCOW, April 25. /TASS/. The magistrate court in Moscow has repeatedly levied a fine against the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns the Russian-language Wikipedia, for the refusal to delete false information, a TASS correspondent reported about from the courtroom on Tuesday. This time the fine amounted to 800,000 rubles ($9,806).
"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 800,000 rubles," the judge said.
According to the case files, Wikipedia posted false information about the activities of the Tablighi Jama’at group (recognized as extremist in the Russian Federation).
In April 2022, the court fined the Wikimedia Foundation 5 million rubles ($61,304) for refusing to remove articles about the events in Bucha, the destruction of the hospital and theater in Mariupol, and the manufacture of gunpowder.
In February 2023, the organization was fined 2 million rubles ($24,508) for publishing data on the places of deployment three Russian military units.
In April, the court fined the Wikimedia Foundation 1.5 million rubles ($18,382) for refusing to remove information about the battles for Akhtyrka in the Sumy region during the special military operation in Ukraine, 800,000 rubles ($9,806) for refusing to remove a post about the banned song by the Psychea group, and 2 million rubles ($24,517) for refusal to delete an article titled "Russian occupation of the Zaporozhye region."
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.