Russia toughens voice for Apple and Google to remove Navalny app
Russia requests that the App Store and Play Store of Apple and Google remove the Navalny app (Illustrative image).
© Chris DELMAS / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Three weeks before the legislative and regional elections, Russia is raising its tone very strongly against Apple and Google.
Roskomnadzor, the Russian telecoms giant, has just issued a second warning to the two companies and a very harsh warning this time, because they refuse to remove the application of prison opponent Alexeï Navalny from their platform.
The agency now accuses them of electoral interference.
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With our correspondent in Moscow,
Anissa El Jabri
Two warnings in just ten days, and this time with the threat of criminal prosecution. This warning from the telecoms gendarme to Google and Apple was also accompanied by political positions. For the spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy Maria Zakharova, the attitude of Google and Apple is "
unacceptable in the light of the current electoral processes
".
On August 20, the telecoms gendarme had already asked the two American companies to suppress the application of the Navalny movement.
It is this which makes it possible to resort to this political tactic: the so-called intelligent vote, the application indeed indicates to the voters who is the candidate best placed to beat that of the power.
The opposition may well be almost wiped off the electoral map and the independent media almost all qualified as foreign agents, the power in the run-up to the elections is not giving up.
Five days in prison for talking about the application on Instagram
In Rostov-on-Don, in the south of the country, on Thursday, September 2, 2021, a mother was arrested by 10 officers, on the way to the kindergarten where she was taking her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter .
The activist who had mentioned on Instagram this famous "
smart vote
" was sentenced to five days in prison.
These legislative elections, which will be held within three weeks in Russia, are taking place without the participation of candidates and allies of the Navalny movement, excluded from the ballot or forced into exile since the banning of their organizations, declared in June "
extremist
".
►Also read: In Russia, Alexeï Navalny's anti-corruption fund officially closed
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