St. Petersburg court overturns previous decision to block Bitcoin news site
The Saint Petersburg City Court in Russia has overturned the district court's previous decision to block the Bitcoininfo.ru crypto-media site, the TASS reports on 4 June. The district court judgment was rendered in July 2016 in accordance with a ban on related cryptographic information sources, as digital currencies like Bitcoin (BTC) were not legal in the country.
As reported by TASS, the new decision was promulgated after the Russian Supreme Court remanded the case to the Saint Petersburg City Court, following a complaint filed by the owner of Bitcoininfo.
"The Saint Petersburg City Court overturned the decision of the District Court which had acknowledged the information placed on the Bitcoininfo.ru website as banned from viewing. "
The press service of the Court also reported that in July 2016, the St. Petersburg District Court of Vyborg had banned the website at the request of local prosecutors. The case had been reviewed by the court without the owners of the website being present.
According to the Bitcoininfo representative, the application process was initiated unilaterally by the prosecutors without involving the owners of the site and without requesting the removal of content that was considered illegal. He also noted that the City Court refused to accept a request for appeal after the adoption of the ban.
According to the case, local prosecutors called for the ban on the website because it contained information on cryptos, which are "out of government control," "facilitate the growth of the underground economy" and "which have not no specific properties ".
Earlier this year, the Saint Petersburg City Court overturned a previous court of first instance ruling banning 40 Bitcoin-related websites in the Russian Federation. The ban was initiated because the sites "disseminated information" about digital currency that "is not supported by any real asset and does not provide information about its owners".
The court's decision precedes a regulatory framework for future cryptos, scheduled for July 1 by decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The framework is supported by the Committee for Legislative Work of the Russian State Duma and includes a draft law on digital financial assets that was published in March this year.
