Misuse of Anti-Extremism in January 2015

The following is our review of the primary and most representative events in the misuse of Russia’s anti-extremist legislation in January 2015.

Creation of Regulatory Acts

In mid-January, a draft bill, prepared by deputies of the Parliament of the Chechen Republic, which envisages increased penalties for crimes related to terrorism, was introduced in the State Duma. The bill establishes tougher criminal liability under the Criminal Code Articles 205, 205.1, 205.2, 205.3, 205.4, 205.5 and 206. Proposed prison sentences range from 15 to 25 years. The bill suggests additional penalties, such as confiscation of property, seizure of bank accounts with confiscation of funds, rescinding special, military or honorary titles, ranks and state awards and loss of rights to public social services. Some changes also affect the provision of the law “On Combating Terrorism” related to compensation for damage, which resulted from a terrorist act. By and large, on its way to the Duma the bill had been softened almost beyond recognition (the original version of the initiative, presented by the Chechen deputies, can be read here). It is also worth noting that, a bill toughening penalties for terrorists and also providing for punishment for their relatives was already introduced the State Duma in early 2014 (we covered it here).

In the second half of the month, the State Duma adopted in the first reading the bill “On undesirable foreign organizations” aimed at expanding the so-called “Dima Yakovlev Law”. Under the bill, “the activities of a foreign or international organization that represent a threat to the defense, or national security, or public order, or public health may be deemed undesirable in the Russian Federation in order to protect the constitutional order, morality, rights and lawful interests of other persons.” The decision to declare activities of an organization undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation is to be made by the Prosecutor General's Office with participation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The organization is then added to a special list that is to be maintained by the Ministry of Justice. An “undesirable organization” shall be prohibited from establishing offices in the territory of Russia, disseminating information, organizing public events and participation in them; its accounts and financial transactions are to be blocked, and its representatives shall be denied the right to enter the country. Article 20.33 (illegally organizing activities of a foreign or international organization in the Russian Federation and participating in such activities) is introduced into the Administrative Code in order to penalize Russian citizens and organizations for participating in the activities of “undesirable organizations” or receiving financial assistance from them. A new Criminal Code Article (No. 284.1) targets repeated ban violations, and provides for a punishment of up to eight years in prison. In our opinion, the vague wording in the definition of “undesirable activities” of a foreign organization is not directed against really dangerous organizations; their activities already fall within the scope of the existing relevant legislation. The bill obviously creates a new lever to suppress activities of various religious and civil society organizations in Russia and can become the basis for large-scale human rights violations.

Criminal Prosecution

Rafis Kashapov, the Tatar Public Center chairman, was charged under Part 1 of Article 282 (incitement of hatred or enmity) and taken into custody in late December. He is charged for making four materials publicly available via the social network VKontakte. All three texts (the fourth material is a poster depicting the victims of Russian military operations) include the ideas on solidarity with Ukraine and the Crimean Tatars, illegality of the annexation of Crimea, and rejection of the Russian government’s course of action. According to the expert opinion in the case, the materials contain “psychological signs of information aimed at inciting enmity (hatred) against members of the category “They/Aggressor” (“new unrecognized power on the peninsula”, “participants of Russian punitive expedition”, “Vladimir Putin”,” Russia”, “Russians”) defined by mixed criteria.” We found no signs of incitement to ethnic hatred or military action in these materials. As for the criticism against the Russian government, we should keep in mind that, according to the Supreme Court’s clarification regarding the anti-extremist legislation enforcement practice, such criticism should not be interpreted as inciting hatred and prosecuted under Article 282.

Akhtem Chiygoz, a leader of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, was arrested in late January, in the course of investigation under the Criminal Code Article 212 Parts 1 and 2 (organization of and participation in mass riots). Notably, the event that triggered the filing of this case – the February clashes between supporters and opponents of Crimea’s integration into Russia - occurred before the integration itself, and thus cannot fall under the jurisdiction of Russian courts.

We also learned that the Investigative Committee of Crimea received from the Prosecutor's Office the materials to initiate proceedings under Article 280.1 Part 2 (public calls for action aimed at violating the territorial integrity of Russia), Article 239 Part 2 (creation of an association infringing upon the liberties and rights of individuals) Article 282 Part 2 (inciting hatred or enmity) and Article 282.3 (funding of extremist activity). Details of the charges under the Criminal Code Articles 239, 280.1, 282, and 282.3 are not known. With respect to a request by the Crimean Prosecutor-General to open a “separatism” case against the Crimean Tatar activists, we believe that calls for violent separatism (which is not something the Crimean Tatars engage in) are the only ones to present danger, and, in addition, accusing people, who unwittingly became Russian citizens, for being unhappy about joining Russia is unacceptable.

A criminal case under Article 282 Part 1 (incitement to hatred) was filed in an Izhevsk court against 23-year-old Izhevsk resident Timur Shoev, who posted on his social network page an “image of Jesus Christ, [on the cross], against whom a group of people is committing acts of rape” (recognized as extremist in January 2014 for insulting the dignity of religious believers), accompanied by an anti-Christian commentary. The content of and the degree of aggressiveness in the commentary, unfortunately, are not known, but, reportedly, the image was accompanied by the text that contained obscenities. However, we doubt the legitimacy of this criminal case. We would like to remind here that we oppose the criminalization of insults against religious sentiment as such. Similarly, we believe that criminalizing the insult against religious feelings, particularly through images, no matter how crude, is inappropriate.

A Muslim was detained in Samara in January for his alleged Hizb ut-Tahrir membership. A criminal case against him was opened under the Criminal Code Article 205.2 Part 1 (public incitement to terrorism) and Article 282.2 Part 2 (participation in an extremist organization). According to the investigators, he participated in the party’s activities starting in 2012 through April 2014, and posted its videos on the Internet. As we have often mentioned, we believe that charges of promoting terrorism against Hizb ut-Tahrir followers, based merely on the fact of their participation in the party activities such as dissemination of information materials, are inappropriate.

Administrative Prosecution

In January, we recorded six cases of administrative persecution that we consider inappropriate. An imam was fined in Tayshet under the Administrative Code Article 20.29 (mass dissemination of extremist materials, or storage with intent to distribute) for possession of banned religious literature from the notorious “Orenburg list”; a case against a penal colony employee was filed in the Sverdlovsk Region after a book from the same list had been found in the colony’s mosque; a student from Morocco was fined in Novgorod for sharing a hyperlink to the electronic version of the inappropriately prohibited book “On the Way to the Koran” by Elmir Guliyev via a social network; in Crimea, the library director in Feodosiawas fined because a banned book about Holodomor was found in her collection, and the director of the Kerch Central Library System was fined under the same Administrative Code article for lack of content filtering on the library computers.

Volgograd resident Andrei Devyatkin spent seven days under arrest under the Administrative Code Article 20.3 (propaganda and public demonstration of Nazi paraphernalia or symbols) for publishing a text, which described the activities of the head of a local village administration, on his LiveJournal blog. The text was illustrated by a de-motivational poster, on which the official’s ear was adorned with a swastika-shaped earring. We believe that Devyatkin was punished inappropriately, since he clearly did not advocate Nazism.

Banning Organizations and Materials and Other State Actions

It was reported in January, that, in late December 2014, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Karelia ruled to disband the Youth Human Rights Group of Karelia (Molodezhnaya pravozashchitnaya gruppa Karelii, MPG Karelia) and remove the organization’s name from the Unified State Registry of Legal Entities. MPG Karelia was eliminated on the basis of the fact that Maxim Efimov, listed as its founder, was also included on the “Rosfinmonitoring List” (a list of organizations and individuals involved in terrorist or extremist activity) as a suspect in a case under Article 282. According to Article 19 of the Law “On Public Associations,” a person included in the Rosfinmonitoring List can not act as a founder of a public association.

We view the case against Efimov as filed without a sufficient foundation, but this is not the only reason we view the ban on MPG Karelia as inappropriate. A status of a suspect suggests that one’s guilt has not yet been proven. With this in mind, we see such a possibility of eliminating organizations as an anti-constitutional norm that can be challenged in the Constitutional Court.

Religious organization “Local religious community of Taishet Muslims” received a warning from the Prosecutor's Office about the impermissibility of violating the Law on Combating Extremism after the imam of the local mosque had been fined under the Administrative Code Article 20.29 (see above). In case of a repeated violation, the organization can be eliminated.

At the end of the month the Frunzensky district court of Vladivostok recognized the book by Ilya Falkovsky and Alexander Litoy “Strike Forces” against Putin” (“Udarnye otryady” protiv Putina) as extremist material. The book represents a not quite successful attempt to describe the ideology and activity of modern Russian extremists (both radical supporters of Russian nationalism and the North Caucasian militants). It is based on a large number of documents; texts and research by the characters (including the BORN leaflets already included on the List of Extremist Materials) are quoted abundantly. However, the book contains no terrorism-justifying statements authored by Falkovsky or Litoy. It should also be noted that the authors never expressed solidarity with the views and actions of their characters. In our opinion, “Strike Forces” against Putin” have been banned inappropriately.

In January, the Kurgan City Court recognized as extremist the book “Abu Bakr al-Syddik: The First Righteous Caliph” by Ali Muhammad al-Sallabi, arguing that it incites hatred of people of other faiths and of Muslims who departed from the principles of strict monotheism. Narrating the biography of Caliph Abu Bakr, modern Islamic scholar and politician Al-Sallabi could be well aware of the possibility of today's Islamists being inspired by the history of the first caliph’s struggle against apostasy and his conquest of new lands. Al-Sallabi writes that Muslims should follow the example of the first caliph (albeit, not emphasizing his military activities, but speaking of his overall righteousness). However, the book contains no direct calls for war against the infidels. We believe that this work was banned inappropriately. It is impossible to prevent Muslims from writing about the history of Islam and its religious leaders, even very bellicose ones. Religious wars were present in the history of religions, and, predictably, are reflected in the spiritual literature.

In the last days of December, four internet resources - Polit.ru, Business Online, BFM.ru and Mediazone - received Roskomnadzor warnings, because, according to Roskomnadzor, they “allowed publication of materials, which contained public appeals for changing the constitutional order.” The material in question is the interview of Alexei Navalny to the press, given upon leaving Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky Court after his Yves Rocher case verdict on December 30, 2014. Indeed, a number of Navalny’s statements urged people to keep taking to the streets until the government that prosecutes relatives of its political opponents is “destroyed” (according to one statement), (“removed,” according to another one). However, in our opinion, these few lines, taken from the conversation, are not sufficient to determine the extent of constitutionality or unconstitutionality of Navalny’s proposed methods for regime change. In addition, the reporters covering the events of December 30 did not express solidarity with Navalny’s statements, and the texts in question present no evidence that the news resources crossed the boundaries of legitimate quoting.

In mid-January, Roskomnadzor issued a recommendation, urging the media to refrain from publishing caricatures “depicting sacred objects that affect the feelings of religious believers,” which can be regarded as a violation of Russian anti-extremism legislation. In late January, an avalanche of warnings to the media was issued in relation to reprints from Charlie Hebdo. Roskomnadzor warned RBC-Daily and 13 online media resources: Vek newspaper, VK Press news agency, InterNovosti.ru, Lenizdat.ru, kurier-media.ru, RB.ru, RUNews24.ru, Lenoblinform.ru, Leningrad Regional news agency, Respublika portal of Kazakhstan, and, finally, even the blocked Grani.ru portal, for which it became the second warning of the year. In our view, Roskomnadzor’s actions to “protect the feelings of believers” clearly contradict the freedom of speech.