Russia fights financial crisis... with censure

If you live in America or in Europe and are used to watching television every day, you probably think that nobody in the world now knows for sure how to deal with the current economic crisis. But you would think differently if you lived in Russia.

First of all if you watch television or read mainstream newspapers in Russia, you must know that the economic crisis has affected all countries in the world except for one (guess which one) "because its officials have taken all necessary actions to prevent it".

And second, Russian officials took measures to make sure people believed that.

According to an article on the web page of Russian newspaper "Kommersant" the Russian "General Prosecutor's Office joined the fight against the financial crisis. It issued an instruction for its attorneys in different regions of the country 'to prevent the information attacks on banks'". Inspection of different media outlets started yesterday in different regions of Russia. The attorneys are examining media reports for signs of "fomentation of financial crisis" and "destabilization of the situation in the region".

Web site URA.ru became the first target for the officials after writing about banks. During an interrogation its editor was asked how the web site got its information about banks.

The General Prosecutor Office's spokesman explained that they "don't censor", but just "verify the accuracy of information".

The newspaper mentions that the first person who spoke about "information attacks" that can "destabilize the social situation" was Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.