On January 11, the American nonprofit organization The Tor Project filed an appeal against the blocking of the Tor anonymous browser in the Saratov Regional Court. Authorized representatives of the service expressed their belief that the blocking of Tor was a mistake, citing the lack of a legal ban in Russian legislation on disseminating information about VPN technologies and anonymizers. This information was reported by “Kommersant,” referencing court documents. The interests of the browser’s developers are represented by lawyers from “Roskomsvoboda.”
The consideration of the blocking case took place without representatives from Tor, which constitutes a violation of the resource owner’s rights. The decision to block the website obstructs the constitutional right to freely provide, receive, and review information, as well as to protect privacy, as noted by the lawyers from “Roskomsvoboda.”
Access restrictions to Tor resources came into effect on December 8, 2021, in accordance with a decision made by the Saratov District Court back in 2017.
The unblocking of Tor is possible, provided that access to banned websites in Russia is limited; however, the chances are minimal since circumvention services have been included in the list of information security threats, according to Yaroslav Shitsle, the head of “Dispute Resolution” at “Rustam Kumar and Partners.”
In January 2022, the blockchain project TON announced that it would launch an equivalent service to Tor by the end of the year.