Misuse of Anti-Extremism in July 2016

The following is our review of the primary and most representative events in the misuse of anti-extremist legislation in Russia in July 2016.

Lawmaking

On July 7, 2016, Vladimir Putin signed the “anti-terrorism package” of the two bills, also known as the “Yarovaya Package”. We would like to remind that the Package adds almost nothing to the real means of protecting public safety; meanwhile, it considerably encroaches upon fundamental human rights and was seemingly adopted, as it seems, primarily in order to demonstrate determination in the “fight against terrorism and extremism.” The Package creates a number of new tools that can be used to exert selective pressure against online campaigns, religious groups and individuals. It introduces such unprecedented measures as mandating long-term preservation of electronic communications by the Internet service providers for law enforcement agencies’ convenience, criminal liability for failure to report certain crimes to the authorities, expanded criminal responsibility of 14 - 16 years-old adolescents, harsher punishment under the Criminal Code articles that pertain to terrorism or extremism, very carelessly worded restrictions on religious missionary activity (rejected by all branches of government for preceding 15 years), and so on.

Notably, even parliament members doubt the feasibility of the Package provisions pertaining to the information retention. Member of the Federation Council Anton Belyakov introduced a bill in the State Duma on July 19, 2016 aimed to delay the implementation of the regulations on preserving the citizens' electronic communications. The senator suggested that these measures should commence on July 1, 2023, rather July 1, 2018. Belyakov pointed out that enforcing the rules for data storage in their current form would result in enormous losses for Internet service providers, increase the cost of their services and halt the industry development. In addition, a paragraph on providing decryption keys for encoded communications is, to a large extent, not technically feasible due to the use of end-to-end encryption.

Criminal Prosecution

In the first days of July, it was reported that, as part of a criminal investigation, FSB officers confiscated the correspondence of publicist Andrey Piontkovsky with the editorial board of the Echo of Moscow radio station. Two employees of the Echo’s online version, including its editor-in-chief Vitaly Ruvinsky, were summoned for questioning. Investigative actions were carried out as part of the criminal case, based on the fact of the post “A Bomb Ready to Explode” published by Piontkovsky on his blog on the Echo of Moscow website in January. The FSB press release reports that the article contained calls for “violation of the territorial integrity of Russia and actions aimed at inciting hatred and hostility based on ethnicity” (a formula corresponding to the content of Articles 280.1 and 282 of the Criminal Code). So far, Piontkovsky has not yet been charged as a defendant in this case. The publicist left Russia when he found out about the possible criminal case against him. “A Bomb Ready to Explode” focused on the crisis in relations between the Russian and Chechen peoples. Initially, the text ended with the statement that Chechnya should be granted full independence in order to avoid disaster, but these words have been removed at some point after the publication of the text. In our view, calls for the violent separatism are the only ones that merit prosecution, and Piontkovsky’s post contained no such calls. Furthermore, we found the text to contain no statements that incite hatred on ethnic grounds.

In late July, the Elista City Court of the Republic of Kalmykia issued its verdict against Said Osmanov, who had desecrated a statue of Buddha. Osmanov was found guilty under Article 148 Part 2 of the Criminal Code (insulting the religious feelings of believers, committed in places specifically intended for worship) and Part 1 Article 282 of the Criminal Code (incitement of hatred or enmity). The court gave him a suspended sentence of 2 years with a 1 year probation. On the night of April 2, 2016, Osmanov, a Dagestani athlete who arrived in Elista for a freestyle wrestling competition, entered a Buddhist temple along with teammates, urinated there and kicked a Buddha statue in the nose with his foot. Osmanov published the video recording of his vandalism on the Internet. We do not deny Osmanov’s guilt, however, we doubt the appropriateness of the verdict with regard to incitement to hatred, since neither the media nor the law enforcement in reports mention any statements, made by Osmanov during his action in a Buddhist temple. We also believe that applying both Article 148 and Article 282 of the Criminal Code in fact constitutes a double punishment of Osmanov for the same act.

In mid-July, the Sovetsky District Court of Chelyabinsk extended by six months the period of mandatory treatment in a psychiatric hospital for Alexey Moroshkin, a local activist, and the founder of the Church of the Chelyabinsk Meteorite, known under the pseudonym Andrey Breiva. Moroshkin was charged under Article 280.1 Part 2 of the Criminal Code (public incitement to separatism via the Internet) for posting a series of 12 texts, which called for secession of the Ural region from Russia and creation of the Siberian federal union, on the online community page “For Fighting Ukraine! For Free Ural! Together Against the Evil!” in April-March 2015. In November 2015, Moroshkin was released from criminal liability and sent for mandatary treatment in Chelyabinsk Regional Specialized Neuropsychiatric Hospital No. 1, after having been diagnosed with “paranoid schizophrenia,” with added specification: “reformist delusions of religious nature.” We had no opportunity to review all the texts by Moroshkin, but the ones we were able to access contained no calls for actual thought-out actions to implement any of his plans. We believe that Article 280.1 of the Criminal Code excessively limits freedom of speech, and that prosecution is justified only for incitement to violent separatism. We view the psychiatric diagnosis (issued in connection with ironic statements regarding the establishment of the Church of the Chelyabinsk Meteorite) as bewildering, and the subsequent conclusion about the need to isolate Moroshkin as unconvincing. The Memorial Human Rights Center recognized Moroshkin as a political prisoner in July.

Administrative Prosecution

It was reported in July that two religious organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses, in Stavropol and in Nizhny Tagil (the Sverdlovsk Region), were fined 100 thousand each under Article 20.29 of the Administrative Code for possession of Jehovah's Witnesses pamphlets deemed extremist, with intent to distribute. We regard bans against the Jehovah's Witnesses literature, liquidation of their communities and persecution of the believers as religious discrimination.

It was reported in July that the sentence, issued by the Belaya Kalitva Town Court (the Rostov Region) in the case of police officer D. Eliseev, entered into force in late June. In 2015, detective Eliseev threatened local resident A. Minaev, who had faced administrative responsibility twice in the preceding year for posting extremist video and images of the swastika on his page, with opening a new administrative proceedings under Article 20.29 of the Administrative Code unless Minaev once again publishes the swastika on his page. The police officer promised Minaev to cover his fine for the display of Nazi symbols (under Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code). Minaev agreed, but recorded the conversation and reported the incident to the prosecutor’s office. Eliseev pleaded guilty. He was convicted of abuse of official powers (Article 285 Part 1 of the Criminal Code) and official forgery (Article 292 Part 1 of the Criminal Code) and received a suspended sentence of to 2 years and 3 months and an amnesty. According to the court, detective Eliseev wanted “to embellish the real state of the indicators for detecting violations of extremist nature,” did not want to conduct time-consuming audits, but wanted to “obtain a positive assessment of his work, career rewards, and bonus payments for the statistical results achieved.” We believe that this case clearly illustrates current anti-extremist law enforcement practices, under which law enforcement officers on the ground are interested primarily in demonstrating growth of quantitative indicators.