MOSCOW — Rossia Segodnya, Russia’s state-run media conglomerate, is reportedly preparing to open local bureaus in 29 world capitals, a move expanding the Kremlin’s global media presence amid what senior Russian officials call an «information war» with the West.

The new bureaus are set to facilitate local-language radio programming and news websites, though their locations have yet to be formally announced, Serbian media reported.

Rossia Segodnya would neither confirm nor deny the reports, saying details would be released at a launch event in Moscow next month.

The cities in question, however, appear to include Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, and the Serbian capital, Belgrade.

RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reported in August that Rossia Segodnya was set to open a branch in Dushanbe that would be staffed by 25 locally hired reporters.

Balkan Insight and B92 reported this week on the imminent launch of a Belgrade bureau, which will apparently be headed by Ljubinka Milincic, a former Moscow correspondent for Serbian media outlets.

The reports follow Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to the Serbian capital to much fanfare on the occasion of a colossal military parade, affirming Moscow’s deep ties with the Balkan country.

‘Information War’

Rossia Segodnya was established by a Kremlin decree last December. The media holding company integrates the state news agency RIA Novosti and state radio station Voice of Russia into a single media monolith helmed by controversial pro-Kremlin news anchor Dmitry Kiselyov.

Rossia Segodnya, or «Russia Today,» is a different organization than RT, the lavishly funded pro-Kremlin TV network that broadcasts in English, Arabic, and Spanish.

On October 28, «The Guardian» reported that RT is launching a specially tailored television channel to be aired in Britain.

Russia has increased spending on its foreign media operations, earmarking 15.38 billion rubles ($362.2 million) for RT in 2015, an increase of nearly 30 percent from last year. Next year’s budget for Rossia Segodnya has been almost tripled to 6.48 billion rubles ($152.6 million).

Western officials have called RT and other state-controlled Russian news outlets instruments of Kremlin «propaganda» deployed to shape the media narrative in the Ukraine crisis.

Russian officials, in turn, have accused the Western media of carrying out an «information war» against Russia and its interests.

Andrei Kolesnikov, a political analyst and columnist for the opposition-minded «Novaya gazeta» newspaper, says the Rossia Segodnya expansion is intended to complement the Kremlin’s use of RT as a «propaganda» tool to burnish Russia’s image abroad.

Kolesnikov also suggests Rossia Segodnya could potentially be used as a «cover» to improve Russian espionage networks or contacts in foreign countries.

He cited the recent case of Leonid Sviridov, a Russian reporter working for Rossia Segodnya in Poland, who on October 25 was stripped of his accreditation at the request of Polish security services.

Kiselyov has demanded an explanation for the move, though Polish authorities have yet to make such an explanation public.

RFE/RL’s Tajik Service and Balkan Service contributed to this report

http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-rossiya-segodnya-expansion-belgrade-dushanbe/26664310.html

DUSHANBE — Tajikistan’s top police official has called an opposition group that apparently planned an antigovernment demonstration in Dushanbe this week «criminals,» while prosecutors have pressed for a ban on the organization and police detained relatives of one of its activists.

The moves follow the widespread blockage of Internet access in the Central Asian nation and seemed to herald a crackdown on Group 24, an opposition movement whose leader, Umarali Quvatov, left Tajikistan in 2012.

Speaking to the Russian news agency TASS on October 7, Interior Minister Ramazan Rahimzoda said the leaders of Group 24 were «criminals living abroad, who are wanted in Tajikistan for various crimes.»

On the same day, a statement from the Tajik Prosecutor-General’s Office said it had accused Quvatov’s group of an attempt to overthrow the government and urged the Supreme Court to ban it as an extremist organization.

Media reports in Tajikistan said Group 24 was behind recent online calls for Tajiks to gather for a protest on October 10 in downtown Dushanbe, the capital.

Websites Blocked

The reports link the protest calls with the blockage of hundreds of websites including Facebook, YouTube, and popular Russian social networks in Tajikistan.

The sites have been inaccessible across the country since October 5.

Officials at the state Communications Service say they have nothing to do with the Internet blockage.

On October 7, police in the southern Farhor District detained relatives of Group 24 activist Sharofiddin Gadoev, a cousin and business associate of Quvatov who has been living in self-imposed exile in Spain since November 2013.

Gadoev’s relatives told RFE/RL that police detained Gadoev’s parents, a sister and a brother-in-law.

Last year, Tajik authorities charged Quvatov with involvement in a $1.2 million fraud case in absentia.

Quvatov, a successful businessman, used to have close ties to the family of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon.

But he left Tajikistan for Moscow in 2012 and established Group 24 to oppose Rahmon.

Quvatov’s current whereabouts are unknown.

With reporting by TASS

http://www.rferl.org/content/ramazan-rahimzoda-tajikistan-internet-quvatov-opposition/26624315.html

An Azerbaijani investigative journalist has been told that she faces arrest upon her return to Baku from a trip to meet with members of the Parliamentary Assembly of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg.

Khadija Ismayilova, who is known for her extensive reporting on the business interests of the family of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and who hosts a daily program for RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service, said a criminal libel case has been opened against her and she has been ordered to appear in court on October 3.

«I have been warned that, upon returning from my trip, I will be facing arrest and maybe this is another way to warn me,» she told RFE/RL in a telephone interview. «I believe they want me either not to go back to Azerbaijan or to be scared and not be loud about things in Azerbaijan. They have to understand that this is not the way to deal with me.»

Ismayilova sees the case as part of a broader crackdown against civil society that has been going on in Azerbaijan since Baku took over the chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in May. According to local rights activists, there are currently 98 political prisoners in Azerbaijan, including 14 independent journalists and bloggers.

The case against Ismayilova centers on a purported document that she posted on social media alleging that the Azerbaijani secret services used an explicit, illegally filmed sex tape to blackmail an opposition activist into informing on other opposition figures.

Ismayilova says she deleted the name and all references to the individual in question, but he has nonetheless filed a criminal-libel complaint against her.

‘Disabled’ Civil Society 

She says her purpose was to expose the government’s use of this tactic.

«The Ministry of National Security of Azerbaijan and the special services of Azerbaijan are notorious for using secretly filmed sexual-life tapes against their critics,» she told RFE/RL. «It has been used against me. It has been used against others. For me, this criminal case will be an opportunity to highlight this [practice] in Azerbaijan.»

«I am not avoiding prosecution,» Ismayilova said. «I am eager to go and I really look forward to having a loud discussion about the methods the special services of Azerbaijan are using against their critics.»

Last year, a website connected with the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party published an article under the headline «Khadija’s Armenian Mother Should Die» that included the name of the neighborhood in Baku where Ismayilova’s mother lives. It also included the address of Ismayilova’s sister, who was accused of being a «pimp» involved in «sex trafficking» in Turkey.

In 2012, an illegally obtained explicit video of her was published on the Internet.

Ismayilova says that her lawyer is among those who have been jailed during the crackdown and the Baku-based Media Rights Institute, which has been defending her, has been effectively shut down.

«Institutionally, civil society has been disabled in Azerbaijan,» she said. «There are a few individuals left, and they are trying to silence these individuals by these means.»

She added that she traveled to Strasbourg because all the rights activists who met with European parliamentarians in previous years have either been jailed or are in hiding.

«Khadija’s role in Azerbaijani civil society cannot be overstated,» says former U.S. diplomat and independent rights activist Rebecca Vincent in an email interview. «She is a fearless investigative journalist, one of the few in the country willing to examine taboo topics such as corruption among the ruling elite.»

«Khadija’s arrest would be a major blow to the already embattled independent media and human rights community,» she added.

Ismayilova says she will not consider remaining abroad.

«I’m going back to Baku because it is my home and I will not let people kick me out of my home,» she said.

http://www.rferl.org/content/azerbaijan-journalist-ismayilova-fears-arrest/26615533.html

After chairing a meeting of the Russian Security Council on October 1, President Vladimir Putininsisted the Kremlin was not planning to limit access to the Internet or put it under total state control.

The authorities would, however, take additional measures to increase cybersecurity and continue to shut down sites promoting extremism, xenophobia, terrorism, and child pornography.

Putin’s comments came amid widespread speculation about possible restrictions on the Internet — or even a complete countrywide unplugging — amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent and escalating tensions with the West over the conflict in Ukraine.

On September 30, the Kremlin said Russia was «rehearsing responses should our esteemed partners decide to switch us off from the Internet,» possibly indicating a greater level of control from the state.

Regardless of Moscow’s intentions, how easy would it be for Russia — or any other country — to unplug from the Internet?

Egypt shut off the country’s Internet for five days in 2011 during the Arab Spring protests. Syria’s Internet was shut off three times in 2011. Nepal and Burma have briefly disconnected, and China shut off access to the Xinjiang region during Uyghur unrest in 2009.

But how easy it is to unplug depends on the number of domestic Internet service providers (ISPs) that have purchased connectivity from another provider outside the country, according to Jim Cowie, chief scientist at Dyn, an Internet performance company. More of these make it more difficult for a government to unplug from the Internet.

«There’s a protective effect because every one of those represents something that you would have to turn off in order to completely sever the country from the Internet,» Cowie says.

Egypt has fewer than 10 of these connections, while Syria has just two. This made it easier for those governments to switch off the Internet.

What are the specifics that make this more or less difficult in Russia?

Russia does not lack for connectivity to the outside world. There are more than 300 companies that have purchased connectivity from outside the country, Cowie says.

The Russian government would have to force all of these providers to shut down to fully sever itself from the Internet. It could be done, but it would take a lot longer and be much more labor-intensive.

What are Russia’s options to restrict Internet usage, short of a shutdown?

An alternative to shutting down the Internet is by filtering content.

Russia has already blocked several opposition websites and passed a law requiring registration by some bloggers.

Moscow has also indicated that foreign Internet companies will have to comply with its laws. Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media regulator, sent a notice to Facebook, Twitter, and Google requiring them to comply with a law to register with the agency and store six months of archives of metadata on Russian soil.

The Russian government could also shut off the Internet in certain regions or cities, says Cowie. The telecommunications giant Rostelecom has been recentralized after a breakup into smaller regional firms in the 1990s, a move that could make a partial shutdown easier.

What are ways that users could get around an Internet shutdown or Internet controls? 

Internet users could turn to their smartphones’ Internet access via 3G if mobile carriers were still operational while ISPs were shuttered.

Dial-up Internet would also be an option for those with an international phone line, albeit at a much-reduced speed — and a much higher cost. European dial-up providers offered their services to Egyptians during its 2011 Internet shutdown and provided connections while Egypt’s ISPs were shuttered.

Short of a full shutdown, there are already technologies available that evade content filtering and monitoring. One already in use is Tor, a network of virtual encrypted tunnels that make a user’s movements opaque to tracking by an ISP or other third party.

In other words, instead of information coming directly from your computer to an opposition website, the information travels across encrypted connections through a series of other servers before reaching the final destination.

http://www.rferl.org/content/can-russia-disconnect-from-the-internet/26617176.html