On May 11, the Nalchik City Court added the Cherces YouTube channel, owned by a Circassian activist from Kabardino-Balkaria, head of the Khase movement, Ibragim Yaganov, to the register of prohibited materials.
The lawsuit was filed by the prosecutor's office; the materials were collected by employees of the center for countering extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kabardino-Balkaria. In their opinion, the channel “periodically posts information materials of a tendentious and extremist nature,” and some materials justify terrorism and discredit the armed forces of the Russian Federation. According to OVD-Info, at the initiative of the “E” center, a linguistic examination was carried out, which discovered calls for extremist activity in the videos.
Cherces declares its goal to be the revival of Circassian statehood. In November 2022, Ibrahim Yaganov called on his fellow countrymen to join the Ukrainian Armed Forces to resist Russian aggressors and further fight for independence. In his address to the audience, Yaganov stated that the common task of the Circassians, Chechens, Buryats, and Russians is to remove Russian President Vladimir Putin from power. In January, the Russian Ministry of Justice added Ibragim Yaganov to the register of “foreign agents” receiving support from foreign sources.
Let us recall that on February 24, 2022, Roskomnadzor of the Russian Federation obliged the media to use only data from official Russian sources when covering the special operation in Donbass. “It is Russian official information sources that disseminate reliable and relevant information,” the department said. Within a year after the outbreak of hostilities, Roskomnadzor blocked more than 10 thousand sites for reasons of military censorship.