| The "Motherland" video was recognized by the election commission as inciting ethnic hatred The Rodina party's attempt to play on the nationalist sentiments of the capital's residents in the Moscow City Duma elections will nevertheless receive legal assessment. Yesterday, the Moscow City Election Commission admitted that the scandalous advertising video for Rodina, in which party leader Dmitry Rogozin and the head of the Moscow faction Yuri Popov, against the backdrop of grotesque Caucasians, call for “cleansing Moscow of garbage,” contains elements of inciting ethnic hatred. As the head of the election commission, Valentin Gorbunov, noted, complaints about this video, broadcast in early November on the TVC channel, came from ordinary Muscovites, and from representatives of the Caucasian diaspora, and from the antimonopoly agency. “Whoever spoke,” summed up Mr. Gorbunov.
The election commission decided to publish its assessment without waiting for the conclusions of the Moscow prosecutor's office, which received video materials on November 8 for analysis to determine whether the video contained signs of a crime under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (incitement of hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity). Valentin Gorbunov, emphasizing that the Moscow City Election Commission cannot give a legal assessment of the video, promised, if necessary, to bring the collective opinion of the commission members to court. This could be done, for example, during the trial of a lawsuit against Rodina by the LDPR, which accuses Dmitry Rogozin’s associates of violating the law during the election campaign to the Moscow City Duma and demands that his party be deregistered.
Mr. Rogozin himself has already told Interfax that such a decision by the Moscow City Election Commission indicates the intention of the Moscow authorities, using administrative resources, to remove his party from the elections to the City Duma. However, it is noteworthy that the election commission, having noted the fact that Rodina violated the Moscow electoral code, has not yet used other tools at its disposal to influence the violator of the law.
As Mikhail Krasnov, vice-president of the INDEM Foundation, explained to Vremya Novostey, if the decision to initiate a criminal case for inciting ethnic hatred should be initiated by the prosecutor’s office, then the Ministry of Justice and the Moscow City Election Commission, for their part, have the right to at least issue warnings to the electoral association and the party that violates legislation. “They have at their disposal the Administrative Code, the Law “On Public Associations”, and the Law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to Participate in a Referendum of Citizens of the Russian Federation.” Ultimately, we may talk not only about the removal of the party from the elections, but even about its liquidation. Of course, these decisions are made in court,” says Mr. Krasnov.
The Moscow City Election Commission has not yet decided to initiate such serious proceedings. Mr. Gorbunov noted yesterday that the statement of the commission members should not be interpreted even as a ban on broadcasting the video (at the same time, Rodina does not exploit “garbage” images after the start of the scandal, focusing on the events in France). And if members of the capital’s election commission dare to exclude Dmitry Rogozin’s associates from the lists of contenders for seats in the Moscow City Duma, they do so for completely different reasons. In particular, yesterday at a meeting of the commission it was decided to exclude Oleg Sotnikov and Valery Kamshilov from Rodina’s electoral lists. True, this was done at the request of the Moscow branch of the party itself - after, according to Mr. Gorbunov, it became known that one of the candidates was on the federal wanted list, and the other on the local wanted list. Fedor SEREBRYANSKY, Yuri KOLESOV |
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