Sochi Winter Olympics: Circassian Protest Website NoSochi2014 Hacked on Games' Eve

The website of a group protesting against the Sochi Winter Olympics over an alleged genocide committed in the Sochi area in the nineteenth century has been hacked on the eve of the Game's opening.

NoSochi2014.com, a page set up to raise public awareness of the ethnic cleansing carried out against Sochi's native people - the Circassian - by Czarist Russia, was infected by malware, the group said.

"Our web site, www.nosochi2014.com was hacked a few days ago by unknown people. We are working on it to clean," the group wrote on Facebook.

Access to the site was blocked by Google as the malware redirected visitors to other pages with "harmful content," Sencer Shumaf, a member of the Nosochi 2014 movement told IBTimes UK.

Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

"Probably [it was] someone who doesn't want us to reveal the truth about Sochi, the Olympics and Circassians," Shumaf said. "Maybe some hackers who like the current administration in Russia or maybe the administration itself, anyone can do it."

The website calling for a boycott of the Olympics was launched shortly after Sochi was selected to host the Games in 2007.

When it was hacked, the group was in the final stages of the organisation of a number of anti-Sochi protests to be held in several cities across the world - including London and New York - to coincide with the Olympics opening ceremony.

"It's not a coincidence," Shumaf said.

Circassians, who are predominantly Sunni Muslims, say that Czarist troops systematically killed more than 600,000 people as they conquered the Sochi region in 1864.

Historians estimate that at least as many Circassians were deported to the Ottoman Empire. The Olympics fall on the 150th anniversary of the genocide, adding to the community's disdain.

"For us it's like if someone wants to organise the Olympic Games at Auschwitz, can you imagine that?" Shumaf said.