The Investigation Department in Murmansk has released information on the case against Aleksander Serebryanikov, better known as Blogger 51.
As BarentsObserver reported, Serebryanikov was taken into questioning by the police on Thursday based on accusations of violation of the paragraph 282 in the Russian criminal code.
“The Investigation Department is investigating a criminal case based on articles on bloger51.com containing offensive language towards religion,” senior assistant to the head of the Investigation Department Tatiana Kovaleva says to B-port.
Aleksander Serebryanikov has status as witness in the case. «There are no charges brought against anyone yet», Kovaleva says.
There is no information about which concrete publications the case is based on.
BarentsObserver has not managed to get any comments from Serebryanikov, only a short message saying he is fine but that his computer and mobile phone have been confiscated as part of the investigation.
The case against Blogger 51 has received a lot of attention both in the Murmansk region and in Norway since it became known late last night. “Blogger 51 is considered to be a very important source to information that you cannot find in other media”, NRK writes.
A poll in the most popular Murmansk group in the social network Vkontakte shows that more than 80 percent believe that the charges against Serebryanikov have been raised because somebody wants to shut the blog down, FlashNord writes. 52 percent believe “they are trying to ‘dis’ a person who is describing the real situation in the region”, while another 30 percent believe he has “come in the way for somebody who now wants him gone”. More than 1100 people have voted so far.
