The first and the only president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, announced his resignation. Over 28 years of his reign many sites were blocked in the country. Among them are «Medusa», Ozon, «Pikabu», Reddit, Giphy.
Terrorism, extremism, propaganda of suicide and violence – this are reasons why the authorities banned sites. The history of blocking sites began in the mid-2000s. Opposition editions which criticized the government were immediately blocked. However, the problem could easily be solved with a VPN.
In July 2009, the law was passed in Kazakhstan, according to which all Internet resources are equal to the media. After that, courts could prohibit any sites if they contained information inconvenient to the authorities.
In the following years, the largest social networks and instant messengers were disconnected periodically in the country. Among them were YouTube and Facebook. In June 2016, there was a terrorist attack in the city of Aktobe. Then the Internet and mobile communications stopped working at the same time. A panic arose in the city: Aktobe residents could not contact their relatives to find out about their condition.
Popular Russian Internet resources also came under the distribution. The first banned platform in Kazakhstan was LiveJournal. In 2011, the site was accused of propaganda of terrorism and religious extremism. In 2014, due to the material about local separatists, the online edition «Medusa» which was just launched, was also blocked.
2017 was the most memorable year in the history of the kaznet. Then Pikabu, Ozon. Book24 and Labirint were blocked. Resources posted books which were banned in Kazakhstan. Among them are the «Strike of the Russian Gods», «Islamic Akida», «Al-Fawaid».
In the same year about nine thousand sites were banned. Resources, according to the authorities, engaged in the propaganda of terrorism, extremism, violence and suicide. There is no official list of blocked sites in Kazakhstan, but the Kazbt project is existing. On this platform, you can check whether the site is available in the country.
By author Asel Minbaeva