Russia limits access to Internet. More on the election campaign.

Today an Internet service provider in Rostov-on-Don, company UTK, limited access of the subscribers to the web-sites of the Russian political opposition: kasparov.ru (site of Garry Kasparov) and nbp-info.ru (the site of the prohibited National-Bolshevik Party). The requests were redirected to pro-Putin web-sites. Some hours later the redirection was cancelled. Now, the access to the oppositional web-sites is open.

The Moscow hosting company Masterhost has shut down the web-site of the left opposition forum.msk.ru after the request of the police. The web-site published an interview with a candidate to Duma Vasily Shandybin, which was classified by the Central Election Committee as "an illegal election campaign material". Earlier, the police contacted Anatoly Baranov, the editor of the web-site, demanding that he deletes the interview. He refused and the police asked the hosting company to block the whole web-site. Baranov has announced that he considers these demands to be censorship and that the web-site will be relocated to another server outside Russia.

The Chita office of the Prosecutor General accused the Chita branch of Sibirtelecom telco of spreading extremist information, texts calling for terrorist acts and spreading hatred and hostility towards certain people and groups of people. The investigation has determined that they "provide data transmission services and access to the sites containing these materials. Thus, Sibirtelecom assists to spread the information contained on these web-sites which is directed against Russian Federation, incites social, racial and religious hostilities." Basically, Sibirtelecom was condemned for the presence of extremist web-sites in the Internet.

Some more news on the election campaign.

Four SPS candidates to Duma, Tatyana Ignatyeva, Tatyana Kopteva, Rodion Brekhach and Denis Shenin, were beaten last evening in the centre of Moscow. The police refused to comment on the event.

Vladimir Bukovsky, writer, dissident and the presidential candidate, was stopped by police for crossing the street in the wrong place. Yesterday, he met the SPS leaders and his consultations with the Yabloko party were scheduled for today. The police checked his documents and ordered him to follow them to the police department. After a short discussion, Bukovsky was released.