Misuse of Anti-Extremism in December 2019

The following is our review of the primary and most representative events in misuse of Russia's anti-extremist legislation in December 2019.

Lawmaking

In December 2019, Vladimir Putin approved the three laws covered in our November review. The laws clarifying the rules on the use of Nazi symbols and symbols of banned organizations, the amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses as it pertains to information-related legislation, and the law on foreign agent mass media were all signed on December 2. The law introducing new Article 19.34.1 in the Code of Administrative Offenses was signed on December 16; this article stipulates the fines for violating the law on foreign agent mass media that range from 10 to 100 thousand rubles for citizens, from 50 to 200 thousand rubles for officials and from 500 thousand to 5 million rubles for legal entities.

In addition, on December 11, the State Duma adopted in the first reading a draft law submitted by a group of deputies headed by Yelena Yampolskaya to amend the text of Article 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (public demonstration of Nazi symbols and symbols of banned organizations). So far, the draft law has been adopted in its original version, which differs from the one that was eventually codified in the related law developed by the same group of deputies and signed by the president in earl December. Apparently, the wording that corresponds to the already adopted law will be incorporated into the draft by the second reading. More information on this subject is available here. The legislative proposal submitted by Senator Anton Belyakov, which contained an alternative suggestion for reforming Article 20.3, was rejected by the State Duma in early December.

Prosecutions for Incitement to Hatred and Anti-Government Statements

In early December, the Kuntsevsky District Court of Moscow found Yegor Zhukov, a student of the Higher School of Economics and a video blogger, guilty of incitement to extremist activity on the Internet under Article 280 Part 2 of the Criminal Code. Zhukov was given a suspended imprisonment sentence of three years and a two-year ban on administering a website or engaging in similar activities. According to the investigation, four videos from Zhukov’s video channel contained “calls for extremist activities motivated by political hatred and enmity, including calls for forcibly changing the constitutional system, riots and obstructing the lawful activity of law enforcement officials,” and the court agreed with this assessment. In these videos, Zhukov did, in fact, call on the opposition to engage in a more active and well-thought-out struggle against the current system of government in Russia, but he advocated exclusively non-violent methods of resistance. In our opinion, the methods of political struggle listed by Zhukov do not fall within the definition of extremist activity provided in the corresponding law. Therefore, we regard his sentence under Article 280 of the Criminal Code as inappropriate.

In late December, the jury and then the Supreme Court of Chuvashia found opposition blogger Konstantin Ishutov guilty under Article 354.1 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (rehabilitation of Nazism) and Article 242.1 Part 2 Paragraph “d” of the Criminal Code (dissemination of child pornography on the Internet) and sentenced him to three and a half years in a penal colony and a fine of 150 thousand rubles. We consider Ishutov’s sentence inappropriate in its part related to the rehabilitation of Nazism. The verdict was based on his two publications on social networks. In 2010, Ishutov wrote on LiveJournal that the Chuvash authorities failed to recognize the fact that the region was a burial place for thousands of German POWs, who had worked at the peat plant in Zavolzhye, and no funds were allocated to care for the mass grave. The blogger noted that, on the contrary, it was customary in Germany to look after mass graves, memorials and monuments. In our opinion, Ishutov made no statements to justify the actions of the Nazis either in the text of his post or in the discussion that followed it. Not to mention the fact that in this case the criminal law was applied to an act committed before its adoption. The blogger was charged under the same article in October 2018 for his post containing a Nazi leaflet and a caption: “When the Third Reich cares for the Soviet people more than Putin does for the Russian people.” From our point of view, neither episode provided sufficient grounds for criminal prosecution, because Ishutov’s intent was, evidently, not to justify the crimes of the Third Reich, but to criticize the policies of the Russian president.

It became known in late December hat the prosecutor's office returned for further investigation the case of journalist Svetlana Prokopieva from Pskov charged under Article 205.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code (public justification of terrorism in the media). However, she still remains under travel restrictions.

Meanwhile, in the Chelyabinsk Region, the Investigative Committee stopped the criminal prosecution against Galina Gorina, a 59-year-old activist of the Stop GOK environmental movement, due to the lack of corpus delicti. She had been charged under the same Article 205.2 in connection with sharing a VKontakte post dedicated to the same explosion in the Arkhangelsk FSB office. Gorina shared this post on her page with a comment, “What is happening all over the country ... Children are killing themselves!” In the decision to terminate the criminal case the investigator noted that Gorina's personal comments did not express her approval of the incident described in the post.

The court in the Kemerovo Region imposed a fine of 10 thousand rubles under Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (incitement to hatred or enmity as well as humiliation of dignity) on local resident Igor Molchanov in mid-December. The prosecutor’s press release on this occasion said that the 33-year-old social network user posted on his VKontakte page a text “containing a negative and insulting assessment of representatives of various official bodies and law enforcement agencies in order to incite hostility and humiliate their dignity” (there was no report on similar assessments of any ethnic groups his text). Based on the press release issued by the prosecutor's office, the post contained no calls for violence. We believe that anti-extremist legislation should not protect officials and law enforcement officers from manifestations of hatred, since, in our opinion, they do not form vulnerable social groups.

We are aware of two cases of prosecution under Article 20.1 Part 3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses for contempt of authority on the Internet, which took place in December. Both cases had to do with swear words used with respect to the president and published on social networks. We would like to reiterate our opinion that Article 20.1 Part 3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses is an excessive norm, which is close to anti-extremist regulation and clearly aimed at suppressing criticism of the authorities that are already adequately protected by other legal norms. Another administrative investigation under this article was terminated – the case of a video published on a social network and depicting a Novokuznetsk resident, who tears apart the Russian Constitution and provides a rude, but not obscene, characterization of this document in protest against his inability to exercise his right to housing, to which he has been entitled as an orphan.

The Yelabuga City Court (Tatarstan) fined Dmitry Anisimov a thousand rubles under Article 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (production and distribution of extremist materials). Anisimov was found guilty of posting on his VKontakte page the song “Kill the Cosmonauts” by the band Ensemble of Christ the Savior and the Crude Mother Earth, the text of which was banned in 2017, despite the fact that the song is clearly satirical. “The said record,” the court decision says, “contains calls for murder of cosmonauts and includes video fragments depicting Yuri Gagarin – a pilot, a cosmonaut and Hero of the Soviet Union – whose photographs are poked with a knife and cut with scissors.”

In December, we continued to receive information about prosecutions under Article 20.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (public display of Nazi symbols and symbols of organizations banned as extremist) that we view as inappropriate.

Thus, it became known in December that the Anapa City Court fined Maria Molodina one thousand rubles in late October. The court found that her son posted on VKontakte a video containing newsreels from the times of the Third Reich, which included visible Nazi symbols. Molodina told the court that her son had saved the video when preparing for a history paper assigned at his school, and neither she nor her son were engaged in propaganda; on the contrary, “they are patriots; they support the Cossack movement in the Kuban.” The teenager’s page contains no evidence of any sympathy toward Nazi ideology.

A Krasnoyarsk court fined local nationalist activist Gleb Maryasov one and a half thousand rubles under Article 20.3 Part 1 in early December. According to the activist, the administrative prosecution was based on his post on Telegram, in which he invited his subscribers to the public debates of liberal conservatives against libertarians. He illustrated the announcement with a photograph of several soldiers in Nazi uniforms and the caption, “This is us going to a debate with the libertarians.” Initially, the Nazi army insignia was clearly distinguishable on the soldier’s uniform, but soon after the first publication Maryasov published a new version of the photograph with the insignia painted over. However, the materials of the administrative case included the unedited version of the post. It is evident from the text of the post as well as from the contents of his account as a whole that the activist was being ironic with respect to his own political views and did not advocate National Socialism.

In Vladikavkaz, a 27-year-old local resident was fined for sharing on his VKontakte page the video “17 moments of Klitschko” in early December. The video is an edited fragment of the Seventeen Moments of Spring TV Series, in which Stierlitz hits SS Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Holthoff over the head with a bottle – but Holthoff is replaced with Vitali Klitschko. The characters in the episode are dressed in Nazi uniforms with the corresponding symbols. The purpose of the video is clearly not to advocate Nazism, but to ridicule the Ukrainian politician, and Seventeen Moments of Spring is broadcast on the central Russian TV channels.

19-year-old law student Ilya Gusoev was fined a thousand rubles in mid-December, also in Vladikavkaz, under Article 20.3. The charges were based on the video “Clever Jewish Boy,” which Gusoev posted on his VKontakte page six years ago at the age of 13. The video was an episode from the film Schindler's List. The scene takes place in a concentration camp – the boy points to the killed prisoner and tells the security officer that that prisoner was the one guilty of stealing the chicken, thus saving himself and others from the immediate death. The video of this episode was widely distributed on Russian social networks accompanied by the caption “Respect to him.” An episode from the famous historical anti-Nazi movie that contains Nazi symbols is in no way intended as propaganda of Nazism. The overall content of the student’s page also gave no indication that he published the video for the purpose of advocating xenophobia. The Supreme Court of North Ossetia overturned Gusoev’s fine and dropped the investigation in his case in late December.

Two people were brought to responsibility under Article 20.3 in December for their interior design decisions. Yuri Vladykin from Glazov (Udmurtia) was fined a thousand rubles for the fact that, starting over four years ago, he has displayed a collection of antiques on an open cabinet shelf of a shoe repair shop, where he works, which included, among other items, an envelope depicting Hitler and a swastika. In court, Vladykin explained that he had “committed an offense due to ignorance and misunderstanding.” However, the court indicated that “the content of Article 20.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation does not stipulate the intent of the person, in respect of whom the administrative case is being conducted, as a necessary criterion for being charged with an administrative offense, since one’s guilt can also be expressed in reckless actions.”

In Almetyevsk (Tatarstan), the court fined local businessman M. Safin one thousand rubles for producing and placing on the signboard of Ego (his store) extremist paraphernalia in the form of a Nazi Kolovrat swastika, which was publicly accessible and visible to people passing by.” According to media reports, the symbol, used as one of the store’s emblems, indeed looked like a Kolovrat, but it was not a swastika. The Kolovrat is a popular Slavic pagan sign that is easily distinguishable from a swastika and is not a symbol of a prohibited organization, unless it is a Kolovrat used by the Russian National Unity (Rossiyskoe natsional’noe edinstvo, RNE) organization.

In December, we learned of an absurd episode that took place in the city of Samara. A solemn post-reconstruction opening of the memorial complex dedicated to the participants of the Great Patriotic War took place in the village of Upravlencheskoye in early November. During the ceremony, it turned out that the monument, originally erected in 1975, no longer features the image of the swastika, split apart by a sword. The district administration said that they had not reinstalled the swastika due to the fact that its use was prohibited by Article 6 of the Federal Law “On Immortalization of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945,” and its demonstration was punishable under Article 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses. In our opinion, the officials’ fears were not entirely unfounded, since, until December 2, the law prohibited the use of Nazi symbols “in all forms” (which does not exclude the split-apart version of the swastika), and changes to Article 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses has not even been introduced so far. This situation demonstrated once again the shortcomings of a total ban on the use of prohibited symbols regardless of their context.

Prosecutions against Religious Organizations and Believers

In mid-December, the Leninsky District Court of Penza sentenced Jehovah's Witness Vladimir Alushkin, charged with organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Article 282.2 Part 1 of the Criminal Code). He faces six years in a penal colony with the loss of the right to engage in “activities related to leadership and participation in the work of public religious organizations,” for a period of two years and to restriction of liberty for a year and was taken into custody in the courtroom. Andrei Magliv, Vladimir Kuliasov, Denis Timoshin, Tatyana Alushkina and Galiya Olkhova charged with participation in the activities of an extremist organization (Article 282.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code) in the same case received a two-year sentence with a probation period of three years and an additional punishment in the form of restriction of freedom for eight months. The believers intend to appeal the verdict.

In Arkhangelsk, the Investigative Committee discontinued criminal prosecution of Kaleria Mamykina, a 78-year-old follower of Jehovah's Witnesses charged under Article 282.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code.

In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the case of Sergei Ledenev charged under Article 282.2 Part 1 of the Criminal Code was returned to the prosecutor.

However, in December, we also received information on over ten new criminal cases against Jehovah's Witnesses.

It was reported in early December that a criminal case was opened in Krasnoyarsk under Article 282.2 Part 1.1 the Criminal Code (recruitment into an extremist organization); Eduard Belyaev was named a suspect in this case. In late December, in Zelenogorsk of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Alexander Kabanov was officially named a defendant in the case initiated under Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code after a series of searches and interrogations. The investigation requested his arrest, but the court refused to place him in pretrial detention.

Two criminal cases against Jehovah's Witnesses were opened in the Amur Region. Four people – Sergei Yuferov, Valery Slaschev, Mikhail Burkov and Vladimir Bukin – were charged under Article 282.2 Part 1 of the Criminal Code in Tynda. In Zeya, charges under Article 282.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code were pressed against 77-year-old Vasily Reznichenko.

In Lipetsk, Arthur Netreba, Viktor Bachurin and Alexander Kostrov were arrested after a series of searches as part of a criminal investigation under Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code.

Birobidzhan resident Larisa Artamonova in Jewish Autonomous Oblast became yet another person charged under Article 282.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code.

In Vologda, a case under Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code was initiated against Nikolay Stepanov and Yuri Baranov. Stepanov was sent to jail; Baranov was placed under house arrest.

Two criminal cases were opened in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk – against Evgeny Yelin under Article 282.2 Part 1 of the Criminal Code and against Alexander Kozlitin under Article 282.2 Part 2.

In Karachay-Cherkessia, the Cherkessk City Court sent Albert Batchaev to pre-trial detention as a defendant facing charges under Article 282.2 Part 1 of the Criminal Code.

Valentina Suvorova, a 71-year-old follower of Jehovah's Witnesses in Chelyabinsk, was charged under Article 282.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code and placed under travel restrictions.

Finally, in the Murmansk region, the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under Article 282.2 Part 1 based on the fact of organizing the activities of a banned community, but no charges against believers have been brought so far.

In early December, the Southern District Military Court found Enver Seytosmanov – a follower of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Islamic party banned in Russia – guilty of organizing the activities of a terrorist organization (Article 205.5 Part 1 of the Criminal Code). The court sentenced him to 17 years in a maximum security prison with a one-year restriction of freedom.

The Central District Military Court in Yekaterinburg sentenced two Hizb ut-Tahrir followers in mid-December: Zafar Yakubov under Article 205. 5 Part 1 of the Criminal Code to 17 years in a maximum security colony and Danil Bagautdinov under Article 205.5 Part 2 of the Criminal Code (participation in a terrorist organization) to 11 years. In addition, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of Russia upheld in December two sentences under Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code issued in August 2019, which had not been known to us previously. Renat Galimov from Yekaterinburg, who had been detained at the same time as Yakubov and Bagautdinov, received 14 years in a maximum security penal colony; Almaz Usmanov from Ufa sentenced to 11 years in a maximum security penal colony.

In addition, a total of ten people were arrested in December in Moscow, Chelyabinsk and the Chelyabinsk Region, and Tatarstan on charges of involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir.

We believe that prosecution of Hizb ut-Tahrir followers under anti-terrorism articles based solely on their party activity (holding meetings, reading literature, etc.) is inappropriate.

It became known in December that the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee for Krasnoyarsk Krai closed due to the lack of corpus delicti the criminal case against Yevgeny Sukharev, a follower of Islamic theologian Said Nursi. Sukharev was charged under Article 282.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code for participating in the activities of the banned Islamic Nurcular association. Back in February 2019, the Sharypovsky City Court of Krasnoyarsk Krai returned Sukharev’s case to the prosecutor, since the indictment contained numerous violations of the Criminal Procedure Code requirements. We would like to reiterate that we view as inappropriate both the ban on books by Turkish theologian Said Nursi and the ban on Nurcular (which never existed in Russia at all; in our opinion, there are only separate groups of believers who study Nursi’s legacy and face unreasonable prosecution).

A court in Novosibirsk fined Yelchin Gadzhiev a thousand rubles under Article 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses in early December. Gadzhiev was responsible for delivery and sale of Islamic literature and paraphernalia for the store in the Cathedral Mosque, where four copies of Muhammad Zakariyya al-Kandhlawi Piety and Fear of God (Entry No. 4153 of the Federal List of Extremist Materials) and two copies of the book The Gardens of the Righteousby Muhyiddin an-Nawawi (Entry No. 4645) were found. In our opinion, both books are prohibited without sufficient reason. Yelchin explained that he delivered the literature to the store based on an oral agreement with the imam-khatib of the mosque, who was supposed to check for compliance with the requirements of the law. Nevertheless, the entrepreneur was the one to face the charges.

Prosecutions for Anti-Religious Statements

In December, we learned that a criminal case was opened against a 45-year-old man under Article 148 Part 1 of the Criminal Code in Ingushetia. The case was initiated on the basis of the VKontakte publication of “photographic images with textual information that contains insults to the religious feelings of believers.” The kind of believers who could have their feelings insulted by the image was not specified. We believe that, if the publication contained insults to representatives of any religion or incited hatred towards them, then the actions of the defendant should have been qualified under Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses; otherwise, he should not have been prosecuted at all. We opposed the amendments, which introduced insulting the feelings of believers into the composition of Article 148 of the Criminal Code, since we believe that this vague concept does not have and cannot have a clear legal meaning.

It became known in late December that the police had discontinued the prosecution of Yaroslav Varenik, a correspondent of the Arkhangelsk resource 29.ru, under Article 5.26 Part 2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (desecration of objects of religious veneration). In 2016, he added to his VKontakte page a video of the song “Yekteniya 1” by the Polish black metal band Batushka. The video contains footage of Orthodox worship, distorted by various superimposed effects added with a video editor. However, Varenik did not personally desecrate any objects of worship, and, in our opinion, the very fact of desecration was absent altogether; the objects of worship were not actually affected in any way. This was noted by experts from M.V. Lomonosov Northern (Arctic) Federal University – the employees of the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, who submitted their opinion on the case. “Desecration implies a deliberate action; the intention of the authors is difficult to establish in this case, since we are talking about a video, that is, about a product of creative activity, which implies a broad interpretation of the images created in the video,” the experts noted. In 2017, Novgorod resident Daniil Sukachyov was fined under the same article for publishing this video.