Misuse of Anti-Extremism in April 2015

The following is our review of the primary and most representative events in the misuse of Russia’s anti-extremist legislation in April 2015.

Lawmaking

In late April, the Federation Council approved a bill, which adds Part 5 to the Administrative Code Article 13.15 (abusing freedom of media) and introduces penalties for legal entities guilty of “production or publication of media containing public incitement to terrorist activities and (or) materials publicly justifying terrorism, and (or) other materials calling for extremist activities, or justifying or excusing such activities.” The law was signed by the President on May 2. The bill stipulates the fines ranging from 100 thousand to 1 million rubles with confiscation of an offending item. Exceptions are provided for the offenses covered by the Administrative Code Articles 20.3 and 20.29, which already stipulate the corresponding penalties. Thus, an administrative alternative to a series of “propaganda-related” articles of the Criminal Code has been created. This potentially positive step is darkened by the fact that an administrative conviction is much easier to achieve than a criminal one – a situation rife with possibilities for abuse.

In late April, it was reported that, as result of the public discussion of a draft Roskomnadzor order a paragraph has been excised out of it, which related to implementation of “monitoring websites or webpages on the Internet in order to identify informational resources on the Internet, which contain information identical to the information specified in a request of the Prosecutor General or his deputies.” The authorities took this step as a result of negative expert reviews, which pointed out the vagueness of the concept of “identical information,” and, most importantly, the fact that this provision conflicted with the federal legislation, under which only the Prosecutor General's Office was entitled to issue requests for blocking websites “with information containing appeals to mass riots, extremist activities or participation in mass (public) activities carried out in violation of the established order.” Roskomnadzor sought the right to independently block copies of items previously restricted by an order from the Prosecutor General. We would like to remind here about our general opposition against “Lugovoy’s Law,” which authorizes extra-judicial blocking of websites.

Criminal Prosecution

In April, the information became public about the sentence, issued by the Moscow District Military Court to resident of Staraya Russa Anton Izokaitis. He was sentenced to 2.5 years in a penal colony under Part 1 of the Criminal Code Article 205.2 (public justification of terrorism), Part 1 of Article 280 (public calls for extremist activities), and Part 1 of Article 282 (actions aimed at humiliation of a person or group of persons on the grounds of nationality). Izokaitis was penalized for a squabble at a police station, where he was taken for disorderly conduct during the New Year’s celebration (January 1 2015). According to the investigation, he “manifested negative attitude toward the Russians, wanting to justify terrorist activities against them, in the presence of several people, expressed support and positive assessment of the actions that took place in Volgograd in December 2013, related to explosions on the train station and the trolley, which contained signs of a terrorist act. In addition, with the purpose of inciting hatred and hostility toward the Russians, he made statements in a rude obscene form about the need to use violence against them, which contained insulting and degrading characterizations.” We view the verdict to Izokaitis as inappropriate. Izokaitis made these statements inside the police station and addressed a small group, i.e., his actions can not be considered public. In addition, the date and circumstances of arrest raise suspicions that all these statements can not be qualified as intentional acts described in the relevant Criminal Code articles.

In early April, the Meshchansky Inter-District Investigative Department of the Central Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the RF opened a criminal case under Part 1of the Criminal Code Article 282 (incitement to hatred and humiliation of dignity of a group of persons on the basis of their belonging to the group “veterans of the Great Patriotic War”), after an inspection, conducted by the Moscow City Prosecutor's Office. The case was initiated after a retailer in the Central Children's Store mall on Lubyanka (Tsentralny Detsky Magazin, TDM) was found to be selling busts and figurines of Nazi Germany soldiers and officers in full regalia. On the same day, interrogations and searches were conducted in homes and offices of the sales staff of Tekhnika Molodezhi – the company, which owned the store implicated in selling the figurines. The figurines of soldiers and military equipment displaying Nazi symbols were removed from this and other stores. In addition a warning about the impermissibility of violating of the law on countering extremism was erroneously issued to the director of the Children's World (Detsky Mir), a company unrelated to the TDM. As it turned out, the figurines and busts, which became the basis for the criminal case, were collectibles and not intended as children’s toys. From our point of view, the criminal case under Article 282 was initiated inappropriately, since sale of models has no qualifying attributes of a crime covered by this article. In this situation, one would expect administrative prosecution under Article 20.29 of the Administrative Code (propaganda and public demonstration of Nazi paraphernalia or symbols), and even this administrative charge would have rested on shaky grounds, because modelers typically have no intention to promote Nazi ideas, when using banned symbols. We believe that sellers should have removed depictions of Nazi soldiers and officers from their open shop windows, limiting the information on their availability to a text catalog.

In mid-April, we learned that proceedings under Article 282 in the case against Izhevsk resident Shamil Garayev had been discontinued. Garayev had been accused of posting the book Falun Dafa on his website falundafa.udm.ru in 2012. The experts concluded that the book’s content was identical to the content of the banned Zhuan Falun book by Li Hongzhi, and that it contained propaganda of superiority of Li Hongzhi’s ideas and opinions over all others, as well as “negative and hostile statements about Orthodox Christianity.” In addition, the prosecutors produced two witnesses, who claimed that the book insulted their religious sensibilities. As far as we know, this is the first criminal case against Falun Gong practitioners. We would like to remind here that the Russian authorities undertake various unwarranted efforts to prevent the spread of Falun Gong Chinese spiritual practice; some Falun Gong materials have been banned as extremist, including Zhuan Falun, written by the movement’s founder Li Hongzhi. Russian courts ruled that the book promoted the superiority of Falun Gong followers over others. From our point of view, the book contains no signs of extremism. As for propaganda of the verity of one’s beliefs, it can not be regarded as incitement to hatred.

The Moscow District Military Court sentenced four Hizb ut-Tahrir followers – Yevgeny Kulagin, Rasim Sataev, Alexey Khamadeev and Aydar Garifianov – during its visiting session in Ufa in early April. They were found guilty under the Criminal Code Article 30 Part 1 and Article 278 (attempted violent seizure of power), as well as under Part 1 of Article 205.1 (advocating terrorist activities). All the defendants were arrested in early November 2012 in Ufa in the course of criminal investigation under Article 282.2 part 1 (organizing the activities of an extremist organization). The court found that, in 2011-2012, the four offenders “talked to parishioners of mosques, encouraging their participation in a terrorist organization,” “involved them in studying extremist literature and videos, based on manipulative techniques, as well as held meetings and conferences, promoting intolerance of other religions.” Kulagin was sentenced to 7 years of incarceration, Sataev - to 6.5 years, and Khamadeev and Garifianov - to 6 years in a maximum security penal colony. They were also sentenced to further restriction of liberty for 1 year. We remind once again that we view accusation of terrorist crimes and an attempted coup against Hizb ut-Tahrir followers merely on the basis of their party activities (meetings, reading the literature, and so on) as inappropriate.

Administrative Prosecution

According to our data, five people and one legal entity were inappropriately prosecuted under the Administrative Code Article 20.29 (mass distribution of extremist materials, or possession with intent to distribute) in April 2015. This group includes three Jehovah's Witnesses (two residents and the Jehovah's Witnesses community of Cherkessk (the Perm Region) and one resident of Tikhoretsk (the Krasnodar Region)) fined for distributing banned pamphlets. A resident of Kungur (the Perm Region) received five days of administrative arrest for having posted on a social network a hyperlink to inappropriately banned film Miracles of the Qur’an. The imam of a mosque in Nizhny Lomov (the Penza Region) was fined after The Constellation of Righteous Caliphs by Osman Nuri Topbaş was been found in his mosque; meanwhile, the decision to ban the brochure has been rescinded.

Two people were fined under the Administrative Code Article 20.3 for the display of Nazi symbols, which had no ideological overtones. A blogger from Omsk, who collected photographs of inscriptions made on walls, was prosecuted for publishing them on social networks, because two of them included the swastika. Sergey Vilkov, a journalist and anti-fascist from Saratov, was fined for his social network post made in 2011. Back then, Vilkov responded to the fact of the local authorities giving permission for the Russian March by posting a collage that included the United Russia party symbols and the swastika on his social network page.

A cafe-bakery in the Penza Region, and two school principals from Neryungri (the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic) faced administrative responsibility for imperfection of their web content filters (which, even in theory, are unable to weed out all forbidden content) under Article 6.17 of the Administrative Code (violation of the legislation of the RF on protecting children from information harmful to their health and/or development).

A report of an administrative offense under the Administrative Code Article 13.15 Part 2 (disseminating information about an extremist organization without mentioning the fact of its banned status) was compiled in April with respect to the Crimean News (QHA). Meanwhile, the information about these organizations was published on the news agency's website prior to the annexation of Crimea. In addition, the Crimean News was denied registration in the Russian Federation in 2015, and moved its office to Kiev as of April 1.

Banning and Blocking Materials for Extremism and Issuing Warnings

Here, we will highlight only the most notable cases.

In late March, the Karelian site of the organization “Stop the occupation of Karjala” and its social network page were added to the Federal List of Extremist Materials (as No. 2675) and blocked. The Petrozavodsk City Court issued a corresponding decision in January 2015 on the basis of a linguistic expertise, which had established that the materials “contained information, aimed at inciting hatred and hostility based on ethnicity.” In our view, the court's decision is not based on real facts - the site only contains calls for a referendum on secession.

In late April, the Federal List of Extremist Materials came to include the item “images of D. Yarosh, the leader of the Ukrainian Right Sector radical nationalist organization, accompanied by his statement: “When I enter Moscow, I will personally remove all the pull-up bars so that that Rus’ never rises from its knees!” (posted on one of the VKontakte pages), reflecting the decision made in January 2015 by the Kurgan City Court to recognize this image as extremist. If the item description on the Federal List is adequately conveying the content of the banned material, then the Kurgan City Court ruling is inappropriate; the prohibition of the Right Sector organization does not apply to the publication of images of its leader; a vague statement, which accompanies the image, does not fall under the definition of extremism.

In late April, the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Court recognized as extremist three articles by Kamchatka journalist Igor Kravchuk. The court agreed with the Kamchatka Regional Prosecutor's Office, that these materials contained “expressions containing incitement to violence against citizens and to social discord, connected with violence or calls for violence, which may impact the consciousness, will and behavior of readers.” Indeed, the articles were written in a very abrasive style, typical for social networks rather than the media (including the use of profanity) and denunciated the current government and President Putin (“the Kremlin crooks,” etc.) However, we found no incitement to violence or incitement of social hatred in them, so characterizing them as extremist does not seem appropriate.

In early April, the Karasunsky District Prosecutor’s Office of Krasnodar issued a warning about the impermissibility of violating the law on combating extremism to the organizer of a concert by Noize MC, scheduled for April 10, 2015. As the grounds for the warning, the prosecutors stated: “It has been established that, in August 2014, the band Noize MC performed at Kubana festival, where its lead singer Ivan Alexeyev expressed his disagreement with the position of the Russian Federation in relation to events in Ukraine.” As a result, a live Noize MC concert in Krasnodar was canceled and replaced by an online broadcast from Moscow. In our view, a warning was issued inappropriately, since disagreement with the position of the Russian Federation is not a sign of extremist activity.