Russia Blocks Atheist Webpage over 'Insulting' Believers

A Russian atheist social networking page was blocked Monday on the back of a court ruling that it insulted the feelings of religious believers.

The group called "There is no God" on the VKontakte networking site -- which had over 26,000 followers -- went offline for users across the whole country.

A moderator's message on the blocked webpage said that the move was due to a ruling by a court in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus region of Chechnya in May 2015.

"The community has been blocked due to the possible violation of the site's rules," it said.

VKontakte, Russia's largest social networking site, did not respond to a request for comment.

A scan of the court decision published by Russian media accused the page of publishing materials that can "insult the feelings of Orthodox Christians", based on an inspection of the page by prosecutors on April 6.

A cached version of the group's website showed posts with pictures making fun of religion, mostly focusing on the Russian Orthodox Church.

One is a cartoon drawing of Jesus telling a surgeon during an operation: "I created this cancer, how dare you remove it?", with the surgeon replying "Shut up Jesus."

It was not clear which exact posts were deemed insulting and administrators of the page could not be reached for comment.

A spokeswoman at Roskomnadzor, the Russian media regulator which compiles a register of blocked websites, told AFP that they were merely carrying out the court ruling by ordering VKontakte to block the page

The prosecutor's office in Chechnya, a conservative Muslim republic that is ruled with an iron fist by Ramzan Kadyrov, said on its website in early May that it "uncovered materials during monitoring of the Internet which insult the feelings of the faithful."

Kadyrov has overseen increasingly conservative policies in the region and called together a massive rally of hundreds of thousands in January against French magazine Charlie Hebdo, which published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

The influence of Russia's Orthodox Church in official circles has grown dramatically under the leadership of ex-KGB agent President Vladimir Putin.