In the months of June and July, the National Council of Electronic Media (NEPLP) made the decision to ban 16 more websites on the territory of Latvia because the content distributed by them allegedly poses a threat to national security, the Council has informed.

Throughout the investigation, NEPLP and the competent State administrative authorities determined that the information distributed on these websites poses a threat or is likely to endanger national security as well as the public order and safety. This includes information where Russia is portrayed as 'a protector of universal human values, who is fighting for its place in the world, for its own historical future and will clearly win the war', that Russia's so-called 'special military operation' has prevented Ukraine from 'hitting' Belarus, that the People's Militia of the Luhansk Republic and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation completely 'liberated' the territory of the republic from the Armed Forces of Ukraine: 'Today, our troops, with the support of the Russian Armed Forces, liberated the city of Lysychansk, thus completing the liberation of the Republic within its own historical borders'.

The 14 websites access to which has been restricted under the Council's decision of July 7 as well as their duplicate mirror pages are: rossaprimavera.ru, mirnov.ru, ukraina.ru, dan-news.info, eurasia.expert, sharij.net, sharijnews.net, lug-info.com, mvdlnr.ru, er.ru, er-gosduma.ru, yugsn.ru, kazedros.ru and ritmeurasia.org.

In June, the Council also decided to ban the website infoagentura.wordpress.com and its mirror pages available in Latvia, thus denying access to the domain name or Internet protocol address of the website. An article titled 'Latvia will soon return to the Russian zone of influence' was published on the website in March, mentioning that 'this rule of law will be realized with fatal inevitability regardless of the wishes of the Latvian residents, the combat capabilities of the NBS and the National Guard, Latvia's membership in NATO and the EU and not even the presence of NATO troops in Latvia. None of that would help' but according to an article published in May 'Ukrainians aren't worthy of Ukraine. They are a perverted audience, who always thinks about the pitch first and foremost'.

The Council also decided to ban the website 1tv.ru, which distributes materials from Russian news programs, providing information about Russia's success in Ukraine.

Internet service providers are obliged to limit access to the mentioned online resources without delay. Thus, in general, the Council has so far restricted access to a total of 109 websites for the distribution of content threatening national security, while another 22 have been restricted in connection with the international sanctions imposed. NEPLP will continue to review other websites as well and all of its decisions can be found online.