Tor Project and Roskomsvoboda Challenge Tor Block in Russian Court

The legal team of Roskomsvoboda now represents the interests of The Tor Project in Russia. Their lawyers are appealing the blocking of the Tor tool within the country. You can read more about this on the campaign’s website.

To recap, in December 2021, Russia blocked the Tor Project website, as well as public proxy servers (nodes) and some bridges (non-public Tor relays). The formal reason was a 2017 decision by the Saratov District Court under Article 15.1 of the “Information Law.” This decision did not target any specific content; instead, it was based on a prosecutor’s review that found the Tor Project website allowed users to “download an anonymizing browser program for subsequently visiting websites containing materials included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials.”

Roskomsvoboda believes the court’s decision is unlawful and should be overturned for the following reasons:

• The decision violates the constitutional right to freely provide, receive, and distribute information, as well as the right to privacy.
• The case was considered without representatives of Tor, violating their procedural rights and the principle of adversarial proceedings.

“The court’s decision contradicts the law and established practice. According to the Supreme Court, any decision made without the participation of the website owner is unjust and violates the owner’s rights. Additionally, we have a European Court of Human Rights ruling in the case of ‘Engels v. Russia,’ which states that blocking a technical network tool is no different from trying to restrict access to printers and copiers, since they can also be used to reproduce extremist materials,” explained Sarkis Darbinyan, head of Roskomsvoboda’s legal practice.

According to him, Russian users are being seriously restricted in their basic right to use “the world’s best tool for protecting digital privacy.” He is confident that this decision should be completely overturned.

“With the help of Roskomsvoboda’s lawyers, Sarkis Darbinyan and Ekaterina Abashina, we are appealing the court’s decision and hope to correct this situation and help set a precedent for digital rights protection in Russia,” said Isabela Bagueros, Executive Director of The Tor Project.

The lawyers are appealing the court’s decision, which effectively banned an advanced technology for online privacy protection. On January 11, they filed an appeal with the Saratov District Court.

About Tor and Its Importance in Russia

Russia is the country with the second largest number of Tor users (15% of all Tor users). Tor is supported by The Tor Project, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free, open-source anonymity and privacy technologies. You can learn more about Tor in our information cards. Download the Tor browser here.