The "Azov" regiment official page was blocked by the Facebook administration

Recently another informational page of the Ukrainian Nationalists was blocked in Facebook, this time it's official page of the "Azov" regiment, which informs on the ideological principles of the nationalist regiment and the major news from the southern area of the contact line between the pro-Russian terrorists and Ukrainian resistance forces. The Facebook administration emphasizes its impartiality on the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, but we should remind you one interesting fact - May 26, 2009 an agreement was signed between the Facebook company and the Russian oligarch of Jewish origin - Alexei Miller, according to which Miller`s company "DST" has bought 1.96% stake of the Facebook for $ 200 million. In this way Miller gained control over all the post-USSR territorial segment of the social network, which is managed from Dublin

Here is the "Azov" press center comment on the situation:

STATEMENT OF THE PRESS SERVICE OF THE "AZOV" REGIMENT ON BLOCKING OFFICIAL PAGE OF THE "AZOV" REGIMENT ON FACEBOOK
On July 7, 2015, without any warning, explanation and arguments the official page of the "Azov" regiment on Facebook was initially blocked and later deleted by the administration of social network.

Press Service of "Azov" immediately began correspondence with the administration of Facebook. However, we still have not received concrete answers both to the question regarding the grounds of closing down our pages and on timing of the resumption of our group's work in the social networks.

We have to state that recently increased in number the cases of blocking Ukrainian pages on Facebook. Most of them are absolutely unfounded. Moreover, often blocking the pages of Ukrainian NGOs and prominent journalists surprisingly has been accompanied by activation of the anti-Ukrainian propaganda.

We appeal to the administration of social network with a proposal to revise its approaches to evaluating and filtering information. Otherwise, along with the brand "Facebook" will be firmly associated the word "censorship."

The official Facebook page of the "special purpose "Azov" battalion" has more than 50,000 followers. Its closure caused quite a strong public response.Press Service of the "Azov" regiment stresses that it has always followed and will continue adhering to the rules of the use and dissemination of information declared by Facebook.

We urge the administration to restore our Facebook pages and prevent such unfortunate incidents in the future.

(Note: in spring of this year Facebook started regularly blocking Ukrainian users and communities. On May 12 President Poroshenko even addressed to Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg asking him to open an office in Ukraine. May 14th Zuckerberg replied that he would consider this offer in the future. The Minister of Information Policy of Ukraine Yuri Stec met in mid-June on occasion of the same issue with the director of Public Policy of Facebook in Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe and Russia Thomas Kristensen and manager of Public Policy of Facebook in Central and Eastern Europe Gabriella Cech. Ukrainian Minister was assured that the monitoring and analysis of Ukrainian segment is conducted exclusively at the operational office in Dublin on the basis of apoliticity and compliance with the standards of social network).