Forwarding, since I guess this is a NA issue.
They're complaining the US registrars are following US law. We have more than enough on our plates already, so can we not waste time on something which is outside ICANN's remit and on which we can have no effect? R's, John
*From:* David Farber via ip [mailto:ip@listbox.com] *Sent:* March 5, 2015 7:01 AM *To:* ip *Subject:* [IP] About ICANN and Crimea
Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation <http://minsvyaz.ru/en/>Report mistakes <http://minsvyaz.ru/en/contacts/letter/>
Events <http://minsvyaz.ru/en/events/list/>/ Official statement <http://minsvyaz.ru/en/events/list/?type=22> Russia Disputed Against Removal of Crimean Domains in ICANN
*Singapore, February 11, 2015.* — Julia Elanskaya, Deputy Director of Department on International Collaboration of Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, made an official statement on 52nd meeting of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), opened at the beginning of the week in Singapore. She paid attention to recent decision of American registrar, cancelling domains, registered on the territory of Crimea.
Full text of the statement is presented below.
“We want to draw your attention to recent decision of American registrar. It informed its clients, located in a specific region, about cancellation of accounts, domains and their withdrawal starting from January 31, 2015. Registrar refers to trading limitations that don’t allow American companies to run a business with individuals and enterprises, located in Crimea.
Russia has always been against introduction of sanctions in ICT sphere, particularly, regarding the Internet.
Sanctions, especially those, that are imposed on the Internet users, must be considered as restriction of right of every person to receive and distribute information and ideas through mass media independently of state borders, as it is established in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This precedent contradicts with values of International meeting at the highest level on information society, especially with principles of using ICT for ensuring general access to information in accordance with Tunisian program on information society.*[MG] * (presumably the WSIS Declaration).
We want to mention that this precedent shows real situation in sphere of Internet-governance, when one government unilaterally adopts measures, discriminating users rights on area basis. At the same time this government controls governance of domain name system throughout the world.
Such unilateral restrictions undermine universally multilaterally recognized principles and values and trust in open and interconnected information space. They can also damage development of Internet-governance mechanisms and lead to its fragmentation.
These restrictions also damage multilateral model of Internet-governance and clearly demonstrate its inefficiency. We suppose that it’s necessary to ensure more fair allocation of Internet-governance means based on international agreements between countries under the aegis of the United Nations.
Russian Federation encourages all interested parties of all countries refrain from blocking in the Internet, including blocking of domain names for political purposes and make efforts for enforcement Internet-users rights.