Moscow,
Russia -- A Buddhist
monk has filed a lawsuit against Roskomnadzor, the state media
watchdog, after it banned a religious text from the 5th century,
the Interfax news agency reported Friday.
Pannuyavudho Topper Bkhikkhu, who is also an administrator of the
theravada.ru website, received in September a warning from
Rozkomnadzor saying that one of the texts from his site contained
information banned for distribution in Russia, his lawyer Vitaliy
Cherkasov said, Interfax reported.
The monk then had to remove the text from theravada.ru, which
serves a St. Petersburg-based buddhist community, as the site could
have been blocked by the watchdog, Cherkasov said.
The warning was issued because the 5th-century text Godhika Sutta
Godhika allegedly contained the description of a certain way to
commit suicide, Cherkasov told the agency.
“My client had to delete the comment, which has existed for 16
centuries, but all of the sudden Roskomnadzor in the 21st [century]
showed up,” Cherkasov said.
A controversial Russian law enacted in 2012 prohibits online
content advocating suicide and drug use, among other things. Any
website in violation can be blocked by the government and be
included in the country's official registry of forbidden
sites.