Russia's crackdown on free expression online has been especially severe over the last twelve months, with legislators passing laws that directly threaten Internet user rights and abilities of tech companies to maintain open, privacy-protective platforms in Russia. Regulations signed into law thus far include the infamous blogger law, requiring anyone with over 3,000 daily views on their website to join a state registry and the data retention law (slated to come into power on September 1, 2015) mandating that all online services operating in Russia store Russian users’ data on servers inside the country. But beyond these new laws, there are even more insidious ways that the Kremlin is stifling civic organizing and political dissent both offline and online. According to a recent report by the Association of Internet Users, a Russian digital rights organization, the number of cases where citizens’ Internet freedom was limited in the country increased 1,5-fold in 2014 (from 1832 instances in 2013 to 2951 in 2014.) The authors of the report note that while the number of criminal cases filed concerning Internet activity actually dropped, they observed more extralegal administrative pressure on users (e.g., unofficial threats to fire or expel) and more restrictions on access to certain content online. The report also notes that punishment for extremism-related crimes has become more severe. Charges of “incitement to extremism,” coupled with increasingly restrictive public assembly and unsanctioned protest regulations are what tends to land RuNet users in hot water. Even a retweet of an image or a republished post can cost Russian citizens unfettered access to the Internet—and their freedom. RuNet Echo has collected some of the more resonant cases of Russian Internet users detained, investigated, and prosecuted for republishing content online. The majority of these cases involve comments and conversation on VKontakte, a popular Russian social network similar to Facebook. Dmitry Semenov, Cheboksary Dmitry Semenov reposted an image on his VKontakte page featuring Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev in a traditional North Caucasian headpiece with an Arabic caption roughly translated as “Death to the Russian snake.” Earlier in 2013, he had also reposted photos from a football (soccer) match, which depicted fans waving a flag with a swastika. He says that after he was issued administrative charges and a fine for the images, criminal charges followed. Смысл текста, сопровождающего картинку, был в том, что пока госпропаганда говорит о защите русских на Украине, почему-то все молчат о правах русских в Туркменистане, на Северном Кавказе, то есть все разглагольствования о «русском мире» – это не более чем пыль в глаза для прикрытия действия российской власти на Украине. The point of the text under the image was that state propaganda talks about protecting Russians in Ukraine, but everyone keeps mum about the rights of Russians in Turkmenistan, in the North Caucasus, so all this talk of “the Russian world” is nothing but a distraction from what authorities are doing in Ukraine. Dmitry Semenov. Photo from VKontakte. Legal proceedings: On January 29 Semenov was visited by FSB officers who showed him the court-issued search warrant and said he was under criminal investigation for “public calls to extremist activity” under Part 1 of Article 280 of the criminal code, based on the fact that the image he reposted online contained “extremist content.” Semenov himself believes the criminal proceedings are connected to his civic and political activity, which had largely moved online in recent years. Sentence: The maximum sentence under Article 280 is four years in prison. When Semenov was formally charged and questioned as a suspect on February 2, he refused to testify since his lawyer was not present at the time. He was then banned from traveling outside the city and is waiting for further court proceedings. Oksana Borisova, Saint Petersburg Om January 23, Oksana Borisova, a student from St. Petersburg, reposted another user's post about an unsanctioned people's rally planned for January 26 in the town of Mineralnye Vody, in memory of a spec ops fighter Dmitry Sidorenko, who had recently been killed in a bar fight. On January 24, both the VKontakte group for the rally and the posts about it on Borisova's wall were blocked on orders from Roscomnadzor, the Russian telecom watchdog. Borisova's LiveJournal blog was blocked as well. Legal proceedings: On January 29, Borisova was detained as she attended classes at her university and arrested on charges of organizing an unsanctioned protest rally.