MOSCOW, April 3 (RAPSI) – A request has been filed with communications regulator Roskomnadzor to restrict access to websites deemed to promote Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami organization which is banned in Russia, the official spokesperson for the Prosecutor General's Office, Marina Gridneva, said on Friday.

A number of websites that promote Islamic extremism was banned earlier at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office, but new websites and their mirrors are being launched, Gridneva said.

Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (the Party of Islamic Liberation), founded in Jerusalem in 1953, is banned in several Arab and Central Asian countries.

Russia’s Supreme Court declared Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami a terrorist organization and banned its activity in Russia in 2003.

Members of Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami are regularly arrested by the police across Russia, mainly in big cities in central Russia, the Volga region and Siberia. There are also many supporters of the organization in the Republic of Crimea, which broke away from Ukraine and joined Russia in 2014.