Over 700 websites declared illegal in Kazakhstan

Around 703 websites were declared illegal in Kazakhstan, Kazakh Attorney General Askhat Daulbayev said Jan. 23, azh.kz reports refering to trend.az.

"The operations were actively conducted to combat religious extremism and terrorism in 2014,” he said at a board meeting. “More than 100,000 websites were monitored. As a result, around 703 websites were declared illegal by the courts on the basis of appeals of prosecutors and the competent bodies."

He said that the courts have also granted the prosecutors’ appeals to declare 198 informational materials as extremist.

"The proliferation of these materials on the territory of Kazakhstan is forbidden," he said.

Daulbaev said some of the sites were blocked even before there was a court decision to back such a move. 

He said his office had worked with its Russian counterpart during 2014 to locate and block sites with extremist content and added he hoped that cooperation could serve as a model with Kazakhstan's "colleagues close to our borders and further away.

"President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a law on amendments and additions to the legislation aimed at improving the efficiency of combating religious extremism and terrorism on November 3, 2014.