Silence, damned books!

A list of 16 printed works prohibited by the Fed on the basis of court decisions has been published. Experts in different ways evaluate the effectiveness of this method of combating racist propaganda. Read the comments of Emil Pain, Galina Kozhevnikova and Sergey Harutyunov.

Emil Pain , Head of the Center for the Study of Xenophobia and Extremism of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences:

The expediency or inappropriateness of this kind of prohibitions is a very difficult question. It is obvious to me personally that this measure in itself gives little if there are no conditions for the transformation of ideas or groups of people who implement these ideas into something positive. The prohibitions have never given a result. You can always find a way how to get around them, preserving the content, but changing two or three letters. In short, the ban is a very limited and ineffective way to counteract extremism.

Galina Kozhevnikova , Deputy Director of the Information and Analytical Center "Owl":

This list is simply the technical result of the work of courts throughout Russia. Rosregistration only collects information on each individual case that was considered in court. It is worth noting that this list is far from full, even taking into account the previous one.

The procedure looks like this: the court prohibits, sends the information to the Federal Registration, it, in turn, simply includes it in the next list of the list.

I doubt the effectiveness of the ban as a method of combating extremism, because there is a wide field for abuse (not from the side of paintings, but from the vessels and the entire mechanism as a whole). In order for the prohibition mechanism to really earn money, you need to think over and register it all. The ban in a sense is even an advertisement. There is no real prohibition mechanism. Well, the court recognized the materials with extremist, well, administrative responsibility for the spread of these materials, even, possibly, criminal. But a person who is involved in the 282nd Criminal Code of the article for a reprint of some material can say: "But I did not know that this material is extremist." And it is possible that I really did not know. But now, after the publication of such lists, he can no longer - this is the list, this material is included in it, if he did not know about it, then this is his problem, and if he knew (and he couldn’t know, because all the newspapers wrote about it), then this is a direct intent. So you have to make a conscious choice: go to a crime, spreading and promoting this material or not.

The publication of this list, on the one hand, is aimed at preventing people in the spread of such literature, and on the other hand, this is a serious step in the persecution of racist propaganda, because there would be no longer a room for demagogy: they say, the defendant did not know, the judge did not know the tenth time expertise (we still have twenty examinations - one says that the material is extremist, the other - the other one. what's not). Now the judge can just cheat with the list.

As for this specific list, I am very pleased that there are materials that are clearly not for political reasons in this list. These materials are really ultra -right, promoting racial hatred, and these materials are not abstractly prohibited, but people who distributed and wrote these materials are convicted of these actions. That is, this is not a political action, but the result of lawsuits for specific materials.

Sergey Arutyunov , ethnologist, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences:

On the one hand, I myself participate in this matter: I have been invited more than once as an expert to evaluate the work of Avdeev, Mironov, Sevastyanov, Savelyev. I consider all these works to be pro -fascist, xenophobic and extremist. But those who ordered me an examination repeatedly turned to the prosecutor’s office, but there were not found elements of extremism in these materials, although, for example, Avdeev’s book “Rasology” almost completely repeats the Hitler racial theory.

My business is as an expert to establish whether the material contains a call for national and racial hostility. But, on the other hand, I am convinced that no word cannot be prohibited. My point of view in itself, if you want, is extremist. I think that the word is a word and even for slander and misinformation cannot be involved in the court, even for calling for violence. Violence itself or direct preparation for it is, of course, a crime for violence, but for screams that someone needs to be cut, in my opinion, you cannot punish.

You see, I have an internal bifurcation, as in the death penalty: on the one hand, I am a fundamental opponent of the death penalty, but on the other hand, I understand that there are many bastards who should be hanged and which the state often covers.

I believe that all these publications are really harmful, but sometimes, under the guise of fighting extremism, the fight against political competitors begins, as was the case with the book "The Unloved Country" by Andrei Piontkovsky. The law on the fight against extremism, on the one hand, can really play a role in the fight against national and racial hatred, but on the other hand, it can cover the action purely fascist in nature, that is, pouring water to that mill, against which it is designed to fight. All our legislation is in contradictory, ineffectively, ambiguously and allows you to use it as a drawbar.