Russia’s internet watchdog, has been blocked…well its offices have been blocked by protestors.

In Russia it is common for Rozcomnadzor to block websites, be it pirate websites, proxy websites, or websites that the Russian Government just doesn’t like. Recently, websites such as Google.ru and Russia’s version of Facebook vKontakte were not available to Russian citizens.

The Google.ru issue seems to have arisen from a redirect to an unauthorised gambling website. However, the problem has now been fixed and Google is no longer on the banned website register in Russia.

This was all too much for activists from the “Open Russia” and “Civil Petersburg” groups. Activists from the group travelled to the Rozcomnadzor HQ in St. Petersburg with a block in mind. Their block was not the usual website block, in fact it was a barricade of boxes. The boxes were labelled with the wording “Blocked Citizens of Russia”.

Andrei Pivovarov, Open Russia coordinator, explained that “Freedom of information, like freedom of expression, are the basic values of our society. Those who try to attack them, must themselves be ‘blocked’ from society,”