MRPC to defend activists through mobile app

The Media Rights Protection Centre (MRPC) has announced a fundraising campaign to create a mobile legal directory for Internet users, says the page of the project "Legal Reference Book for Internet Users" on the "Planeta.ru" crowdfunding platform.

It was decided to create a legal directory with legal advice in order to help activists and journalists to avoid possible persecutions, the MRPC has informed.

"Now, Russia sees more and more cases, when active people, who cover social problems in their blogs or social networks, are brought to administrative and criminal liability ... And very often the legitimacy of these prosecutions raises questions both from lawyers and human rights defenders, as well as from the society ... We want to support Internet users with the help of a special mobile application – a legal guide, which will collect answers to a variety of questions, starting from what laws should be referred to, for example, if a security in a store forbids you to take photos, and ending with the information on which posts are better not to place on the Internet," said Galina Arapova, the director of the MRPC.

As of 5:45 a.m. Moscow time on March 17, 40,000 roubles had been raised out of the necessary 330,000; 59 users had provided their support by then.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 17, 2020 at 05:49 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.