Misuse of Anti-Extremism in May 2018

The following is our review of the primary and most representative events in the misuse of Russia’s anti-extremist legislation in May 2018.

Prosecutions for Incitement to Hatred and Oppositional Statements

On May 24, the Sudak City Court found local activists of the “Anticorruption Bureau” Dmitry Dzhigalov and Oleg Semenov guilty under part 1 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code (humiliation of dignity on ethnic grounds) and sentenced them to fines of 300 and 50 thousand rubles respectively (taking into account the six months Semenov spent in pre-trial detention). The prosecution was based on a post on Dzhigalov’s YouTube channel – the law enforcement felt that the video, which he had created and posted, contained negative comments by Semenov against the Bulgarians. The reports included no information on specific statements in question, and the version of the video that we were able to review contained nothing that would be covered under Article 282 of the Criminal Code. Semenov merely accused the Bulgarians of ingratitude toward the Russians for failing to invite a Russian delegation for the celebration of the anniversary of the country’s liberation from the Ottoman yoke during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. In addition, since the activist was not charged with incitement to any unlawful actions against the Bulgarians, we believe there was no need for criminal prosecution. In our opinion, humiliation of dignity is an act of small gravity and should be excluded from the criminal code. The fact that this is an isolated case should also be taken into account – Semenov and Dzhigalov were not previously known to engage in xenophobic propaganda. Obviously, the real reason behind the prosecution against the activists had to do with their public activities, i.e. the Anticorruption Bureau’s fight against landfills, violations of norms during construction, illegal allocation of land for construction, and so on included harsh criticism of local authorities and publication of materials that contained allegations of corruption.

On the same day, a new charge under Article 282 of the Criminal Code (incitement to hatred or humiliation of dignity on grounds of belonging to a social group) was brought against Magomed Khazbiev, a local opposition activist in Ingushetia, who had previously been arrested on charges of illegal possession of weapons (Article 222 of the Criminal Code) and insulting a government official (Article 319 Part 1 of the Criminal Code). Khazbiev is charged with inciting hatred against the social group “government officials” on the basis of a three-hour video interview he had given to the Ğalğajče (Г1алг1айче), Ingush opposition website. The psychological and linguistic expert opinion which formed the basis for the charge stated that Khazbiev’s words contained signs of inciting hatred against the leader of Ingushetia, Yunus-bek Yevkurov, and against the authorities of the republic in general. Experts decided that Khazbiyev’s interview contained “elements of the realized intention to humiliate human dignity (to insult) an individual (Yevkurov) and groups of individuals – representatives of the Parliament, the law enforcement, the judicial system of the Republic, the President’s entourage, that is, all the power structures of Ingushetia,” and “signs of calling for changing the government in the Republic of Ingushetia,” including Yevkurov. We view the prosecution against Khazbiev under Article 282 of the Criminal Code as inappropriate. Calls for changes in the government, not associated with calls for illegal actions, belong to the sphere of public discussion, not criminal law enforcement. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation spoke against the interpretation of harsh anti-government statements as covered under Article 282 of the Criminal Code. According to the Resolution No. 11 of the plenary meeting of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation “Concerning Judicial Practice in Criminal Cases Regarding Crimes of Extremism” of June 28, 2011, criticism of officials, their actions and convictions “in and of itself should not be considered in all cases as an act aimed at humiliation of dignity of a person or a group of persons; the limits of permissible criticism of officials and professional politicians are wider then for ordinary citizens.”

A series of police searches took place in late May in Chelyabinsk as part of the investigation under part 2 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code (hooliganism committed by an organized group based on political hatred). A number of participants in the opposition action “He’s not our king” were subjected to house searches, including Karina Kupriyanova, Dmitry Deminenko, Alim Kurgaliev, Pavel Giniyatulin and coordinator of Navalny’s headquarter Boris Zolotarevsky, who became a suspect in the case. According to the police, the participants of the non-permitted march were “expressing obvious disrespect to society, publicly, openly, in the presence of people, realizing that they were violating public order and causing obvious disrespect to the society, manifesting their political hatred, chanting hostile slogans permeated with social hatred, against President Vladimir V. Putin of the Russian Federation: ‘Putin is a Thief’, ‘One, Two, Three: Putin, Go Away’ and also against Governor B.A. Dubrovsky of the Chelyabinsk region ‘Dubrovsky Must Retire’”. One of the search warrants also noted that the violators of public order were motivated by “political hatred and enmity.” In our opinion, far from being a manifestation of political hostility, chanting slogans that call for non-violent change of leadership in the state and the region and contain accusations of dishonesty, cannot even be classified as hooliganism because, in and of itself, it does not violate public order.

Prosecutions against Religious Organizations and Believers

On May 7, the European Court of Human Rights communicated a complaint of 395 local religious organizations of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, their chairmen and rank-and-file members. The complaint pertains to the decision of April 20, 2017 by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to ban the activities of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Administrative Center in Russia and the local communities of Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremist, to liquidate all these organizations and confiscate their property to the state. The applicants dispute this decision as discriminatory, and, furthermore, indicate that the Russian court never provided local organizations with the opportunity to participate in the proceedings regarding the ban. The ECHR posed the relevant questions to Russia. Earlier, in December 2017, the European Court partially communicated and promised to consider as a matter of priority the complaint of the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia and its chairman Vasily Kalin, which challenged the warning on impermissibility of the extremist activity, issued by the Prosecutor General’s Office in March 2016 and the court to ban Jehovah’s Witnesses organizations.

We have no doubt that the liquidation of Jehovah’s Witnesses organizations in Russia as extremist, the prosecution of members of their communities and bans against their texts have no legitimate grounds and are, indeed, a manifestation of religious discrimination.

In May, law enforcement agencies in various regions of Russia actively continued their prosecution campaign against Jehovah’s Witnesses for continuing the activities of their communities (Article 282.2 Parts 1 and 2 of the Criminal Code, organizing activities of an organization banned as extremist and participation in it), launched a month earlier.

A series of searches the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ homes was conducted in the Orenburg Region on May 16 as part of a criminal investigation. 18 homes were searched; 15 believers were detained; three were arrested (Vladislav Kolbanov was placed under house arrest; Alexander Suvorov and Vladimir Kochnev sent to pre-trial detention). 11 people were named as defendants in the case.

On May 17, at least 9 searches took place in the homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Birobidzhan. 55-year-old Alam Aliev was arrested, but later the court decision on his arrest was contested, and Aliev was released.

Jehovah’s Witnesses follower Alexander Soloviev was detained in Perm on May 22 and later put under house arrest.

On May 27, searches were conducted ten apartments of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Naberezhnye Chelny. Three people – Ilham Karimov, Vladimir Miakushin and Konstantin Matrashov – were arrested.

On May 31, the Investigative Committee Board for the Ivanovo Region reported on the opening of a criminal case under Article 282.3 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (financing of an extremist organization) against a 40-year-old unnamed Shuya resident, who had been detained. Earlier, in April, a case under Article 282.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code was filed in Shuya against 40-year-old Dmitry Mikhailov; he was released under travel restrictions.

In addition, on May 22, the Komsomolsky District Court of Togliatti in the Samara Region, fined local resident A. Semenova a thousand rubles under Article 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offences (mass dissemination of extremist materials) for posting, on her VKontakte page, in February 2015, a link to the Jehovah’s Witnesses website (jw.org), banned as extremist and included on the Federal List of Extremist Materials.

On May 31, the Izberbash City Court of the Republic of Dagestan sentenced Ilgar Aliev to eight years in a minimum-security penal colony, having found him guilty of organizing the activities of the extremist organization Nurcular (Article 282.2 Part 1 of the Criminal Code) and involving others in its activities (Article 282.2 Part 1.1). Born in 1977, Aliev was detained in April 2017. According to the investigation, whose position was upheld by the court, Aliev conducted classes in Izberbash, Makhachkala and Khasavyurt for the purpose of studying the works of Muslim theologian Said Nursi, involved young people in the activities of the Nurcular cell, and attended international conferences and forums organized by Nursi’s followers. The verdict to Aliev is the most severe known sentence for studying the heritage of Nursi; such a long prison term resulted from the fact that he was charged simultaneously under two parts of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code. In our opinion, the books by Nursi contain no signs of extremism. They are studied in Russia by individual believers, who do not form a single group. As a result of the ban against the Nurcular association (which, in reality, has never existed) they face unreasonable prosecution – formally for continuing the activities of an extremist organization, but in fact – for studying moderate Islamic religious literature.

On May 10, police officers and the FSB in Sevastopol detained two Crimean Tatars, Ernes and Enver Seytosmanov, on suspicion of collaborating with the Islamic radical party Hizb ut-Tahrir, banned in Russia as terrorist; they were cousins of Nuri Primov, convicted of involvement in the same organization in September 2016. The law enforcement searched their home and their mother’s house in Sadovoye village. Enver Seytosmanov was arrested on charges of involvement in the activities of a terrorist organization (Article 205.5 Part 2). His brother Ernes and their mother were designated as witnesses in the case.

In Bakhchisaraisky District of Crimea, FSB officers detained two Muslims, Server Mustafaev and Edem Smailov, on May 21 and arrested them the next day on charges of involvement in the Hizb ut-Tahrir activities. The criminal case against them has been combined with the other previously initiated case against the Hizb ut-Tahrir followers in Bakhchisarai.

We believe that the radical ideology of Hizb ut-Tahrir gives no grounds for banning the party as terrorist, and that accusing its members of advocating terrorism only on the basis of their party activities (holding meetings, reading literature, etc.) and prosecuting them under anti-terrorist articles is inappropriate.