Misuse of Anti-Extremism in October 2016

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

Lawmaking

On October 7, the State Duma approved in the first reading a government bill to increase the responsibility of Internet providers for failure to fulfill their obligations and block pages on the basis of information received from Roskomnadzor. The bill introduces a new Article 13.32 into the Administrative Code, under which officials are fined in the amount of three to five thousand rubles, individual entrepreneurs - 10 to 30 thousand, and legal entities - 50 to 100 thousand rubles for failure to fulfill their responsibilities to block and unblock sites.

The State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications recommended on October 10 to reject in the first reading a bill, submitted by Senator Viktor Ozerov, which called for giving prosecutors-general of the subjects of the Federation the authority to file requests for websites to be blocked under Lugovoy’s Law, currently only vested in the Office of the Prosecutor-General of the RF. The Government also gave this draft bill a negative review.

Criminal Prosecution

In early October, the Presnensky Court of Moscow recognized blogger and media manager Anton Nossik guilty under Part1 Article 282 of the Criminal Code (incitement of hatred or enmity) for publishing the post “Erase Syria from the Face of the Earth” on his LiveJournal blog in October 2015. Nossik was sentenced to a fine of 500 thousand rubles; the defense appealed the verdict. In his post, Nossik called for carpet-bombing of the Syrian territory to the point of complete destruction of civilian infrastructure of the country, and praised the killing of civilians, including children, as well-deserved. We believe that Nossik’s statements really contained calls for gross violations of humanitarian law, in fact - for war crimes, as well as statements about the inferiority of the Syrians, and therefore could incite hostility toward these people as a group. However, in our opinion, the prosecution of the blogger was unnecessary, since his statements presented very little social danger - hostility toward the Syrians is far from widespread in Russian society, and, as for his calls to carpet-bombing, they were addressed to the governments, and Nossik’s opinion has no effect on their decisions.

The Dzerzhinsky District Court of Yaroslavl sentenced a local resident to one year's imprisonment with a probation period of one year. He was found guilty under Article 282 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (incitement of hatred or enmity on the grounds of belonging to a social group). He was convicted for posting publicly accessible “texts that contained information aimed at inciting hatred and hostility towards law enforcement officials and the opponents of Fascism” on his page on VKontakte social network in July 2015. We view this verdict as inappropriate, because the law enforcement and anti-fascists do not belong to vulnerable population groups in need of protection under Article 282. In addition, we believe that the entire nebulous concept of social group should be excluded from the text of anti-extremist articles of the Criminal Code.

It was reported in mid-October that a similar case was brought against Yevgeny Domozhirov, the head of the Vologda branch of the Party of Progress. Domozhirov published a material on his website, in which he negatively characterized the Vologda police in the strongest possible terms, after the police had come to search his house and damaged his mother’s hand in the ensuing skirmish. Based on this publication, a criminal case was opened against Domozhirov under Article 282 for humiliation of dignity of persons on the grounds of their belonging to a social group. Among other things, we believe that humiliation of dignity should be removed from the Criminal to the Administrative Code as a minor offense. It is also worth noting that Domozhirov’s oppositional and anti-corruption activities might have been a real reason for his prosecution (another case against him was opened under Article 319 of the Criminal Code for publicly insulting an official).

Earlier this month, the Kursk Regional Investigation Department of the Russian Federation Investigative Committee discontinued the case under Part 1 Article 282 against Deputy of the regional Duma and editor-in-chief of the Narodny Zhurnalist newspaper Olga Li for lack of evidence. More on the case of Olga Lee can be found here.

In late October, Caucasian District Military Court found Magomednabi Magomedov - the imam of Vostochnaya Mosque in Khasavyurt and the chairman of the Imams’ City Council - guilty under Article 205.2 Part1 of the Criminal Code (public incitement to terrorist activity or public justification of terrorism) and Part 1 of Article 282 and sentenced him to five years' imprisonment in a penal colony. Magomedov’s defense intends to appeal the verdict. The imam was accused of "calling for terrorist activities and publicly justifying terrorism in the mosque of the Vostochny settlement of Khasavyurt on February 5." Magomedov’s sermon was dedicated to the shutting down of Dagestan’s Salafi mosques. The imam talked about the unacceptability of further pressure against the Salafists by the security forces, and urged the members of the community to stay united and seek protection of their rights by peaceful means. The Human Rights Center “Memorial” have recognized Magomedov as a political prisoner - the charges against him were based on his sermon, which was critical of the authorities but contained no dangerous incitement.

A local resident was detained in Barnaul in early October, and a criminal case opened against him under Article 282.2 Part 1.1 (persuasion, recruitment, or otherwise engaging another person in the activities of an extremist organization). According to the investigators, the suspect organized a prayer room in Barnaul in May 2015 and persuaded residents of Barnaul and Novosibirsk to participate in the activities of the banned religious organization Tablighi Jamaat.

Nine people were arrested on October 20-29 on suspicion of collaboration with Tablighi Jamaat in Tatarstan, in connection with a case under Article 282.2 Part 2 (organizing an extremist organization). As part of the investigation in this case, officers of the FSB, the Tatarstan Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tatarstan conducted searches in dozens of locations in different regions of the Republic. We would like to remind that Tablighi Jamaat movement focuses on promoting Islam and has never been implicated in any incitement to violence; we consider its prohibition and prosecution against its supporters unjustified.

Five Muslims were detained and then arrested in Stroganovka and Kamenka (the suburbs of Simferopol) in mid-October in the course of a criminal investigation under Article 205.5 for their suspected involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir, a religious party banned in Russia as a terrorist organization. We would like to reiterate that we view as inappropriate the charges of terrorist propaganda against Hizb ut-Tahrir members solely on the basis of their party involvement (meetings, reading literature, etc.) and their prosecution under the anti-terrorist articles.

Administrative Prosecution, Bans on Materials, and Liquidation of Organizations as Extremist

We found out in October that three individuals and three organizations were prosecuted under Article 20.29 of the Administrative Code for distribution of inappropriate or prohibited material or possession thereof with intent to distribute. The Chairman of the Board of Mahalla, a local Muslim religious organization in the village of Imai-Karmaly in Bashkortostan, was fined after a book by Sayyid Qutb, TheFutureBelongs to Us, was found in the village mosque.

The other cases of inappropriate prosecution took place with regard to Jehovah's Witnesses. Two believers from the Ivanovo Region (back in September) and Karachay-Cherkessia were brought to responsibility; local Jehovah's Witnesses organizations in Petrozavodsk and Kostomuksha (Republic of Karelia) were fined; the Chapaevsk community (the Samara Region) faced responsibility as well. Notably, a Jehovah's Witnesses follower was acquitted in the Penza Region - the court found the fact of mass distribution and mass reading of extremist materials at the prayer meeting insufficiently proved.

Moreover, in mid-October, the Leningrad Regional Court refused to recognize as extremist two Jehovah's Witnesses pamphlets, The End Is Near and Hope for the Homeless and the Poor, seized by the Customs in March 2015.

At the same time, the court of the Jewish Autonomous Region issued a decision to ban a local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses in Birobidzhan as extremist.

The decision was based on the fact that the head of the community was fined twice under Article 20.29 of the Administrative Code (in 2015 and 2016) and, in addition, the organization had received a warning about the impermissibility of extremist activity. In 2016, the believers claimed that the literature was planted, and tried to challenge the decision regarding an administrative conviction of their community leader. The decision has not come into force and may be appealed in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.

Also in mid-October, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow denied the Jehovah's Witnesses claim to rescind the warning about impermissibility of extremist activity, issued by the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation and addressed to the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. We would like to remind that, according to the federal law “On Counteracting Extremist Activity,” if the warning is not recognized as illegal by a court, and the violations pointed out in the warning are not corrected, or if the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses Administrative Center exhibit new signs of extremist activity, the organization is subject to liquidation, putting Jehovah's Witnesses activities in Russia under a threat of a total ban.

We view the liquidation of Jehovah's Witnesses organizations for extremism, persecution of members of their communities and bans on their texts as religious discrimination.

In late October, a resident of Saint Petersburg was invited to appear in front of the Investigative Committee due to him sharing a copy of an image by Vasya Lozhkin on a social network. As it turned out, the copy of the work Great Beautiful Russia by Vasya Lozhkin (real name - Aleksey Kudelin) was recognized as extremist by the Oktyabrsky District Court of Novosibirsk in January 2016, along with three other images, and later added to the Federal List of Extremist Materials. The banned image by Lozhkin depicts a map, on which Russia carries a caption “Great Beautiful Russia,” while territories of the neighboring countries are named using either pejorative ethnonyms or degrading stereotypes of their populations. Moscow businessman Alexey Khodorkovsky, who owns the rights to this image by Vasya Lozhkin, appealed the decision to ban its copy. This ruling came as a surprise for the author and the copyright owner of the image, because they had never been informed about the trial, even though it directly affected their interests. Lozhkin’s image is a satirical work that ridicules jingoistic patriotism and xenophobia, and recognizing it as extremist is, in our opinion, inappropriate.

A resident of the Mari El Republic was fined a thousand rubles under Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code (public display of Nazi symbols) in late October. As reported by the prosecutor's office, he posted two images with Nazi symbols on his VKontakte page in 2014. In both cases, the images in question depicted modern politicians in Nazi paraphernalia, i.e. the symbols were used to express criticism of political opponents, and not for the purpose of Nazi propaganda. We believe that prosecution in this case is inappropriate. Unfortunately, our understanding of the rule of law is at odds with the position of the judiciary all the way up to the Constitutional Court.

In late September through late October, the Bakhchisarai District Court fined nine members of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People under Article 20.28 Part 1 of the Administrative Code (participation in the activities of the public association, whose activities were suspended). The Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People had been prohibited as an extremist organization, and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation approved this decision in late September. The reports with respect of the ten members of the Mejlis were submitted in September, prior to the Supreme Court ruling. In late September, leaders of the organization Ali Khamzin and Ilmi Umerov were fined, and, in October, additional seven members of the Mejlis faced fines as well. As we have mentioned before, we believe that the ban on the Mejlis lacks proper justification based on the activities of the organization; it has been dictated by political motives. In our view, this decision is not only inappropriate, but also politically reckless due to its potential to aggravate ethnic tension on the peninsula.