Google and Apple removed a “smart” voting app from their platforms on the first day of parliamentary elections in Russia, as complained by allies of the imprisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.
“Today at 8 am Russian time, Google and Apple removed it from their e-shops application of Navalny. In other words, they succumbed to the Kremlin’s blackmail, “Leonid Volkov, one of Navalny’s close associates, wrote in his Telegram account.
“Removing the Navalny application from platforms is one shameful act of political censorship. “The authoritarian Russian government and the propaganda will be happy,” said Ivan Janov, director of the Navalny Anti-Corruption Fund, referring to Google and Apple.
“The whole Russian state and even the big internet companies are against us, but that does not mean we will hand over the weapons,” Navalny’s team told Telegram.
Parliamentary elections: The process will take three days
Voting for Russia begins in Russia today Parliamentary Elections, which will last three days. Some 108 million Russians are expected to elect the 450 members of the lower house of parliament, and the ruling United Russia party is expected to win the most seats.
Navalny’s allies, one of the strongest critics of President Vladimir Putin, planned to use the app to launch a vote-rigging campaign against the United Russia party.
Earlier in September, Moscow asked Apple and Google to remove the app from their online stores, saying that if they did not, it would be considered interference in the parliamentary elections.
Navalny had called on his supporters in prison to vote “smartly”, backing the candidates – often communists – who would be most likely to win the United Russia candidate.
The application allowed its users to learn which candidate it would be good to choose in their constituency in order to achieve this goal.
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