Translated material
Apocalypse penalty
Not only publishing houses, but also printing houses were punished for printing books promoting drugs
It seems that the circulations of two books suspected by the State Drug Control Service of drug propaganda will nevertheless be destroyed. Yesterday, the Kirovsky District Court of Yekaterinburg re-outlawed the publications and imposed a fine on both the publishing houses that published the books and the printing house. Let us recall (the Vremya Novostey newspaper wrote about this), the first time the court found the books “Culture of the Apocalypse” by Adam Parfrey and “Club Culture” by Phil Jackson to be promoting drugs was at the end of September. Publishing houses "U-Factoria" and "Ultra. Culture" together with the printing house "Uralsky Rabochiy" protested this decision in the Sverdlovsk Regional Court, the case was sent for a new trial to the district.A second verdict was handed down on Thursday. The State Drug Control Service again provided an expert opinion, which states: “Both works by foreign authors create a high interest and positive attitude towards the use of psychoactive substances and drugs. The texts provide detailed instructions on the technique of individual use of ketamine injection. It contains information about the advantages of some drugs over others, a negative assessment of the illegal status of drugs, and information about the relative safety of drugs.” The court confirmed its previous decision, pointing out that the books contained drug propaganda.
They also considered a petition from the Sverdlovsk Department of the State Drug Control Service, which demanded that the printing house that published the book be punished. The court granted this request of the drug police and in its decision imposed a fine on the publishing and printing enterprise “Uralsky Rabochiy” in the amount of 45 times the minimum wage for the circulation of each book. In total this will amount to 90 thousand rubles. The decision can be appealed. If the defendants do not decide to take this step, the verdict will have to be executed in ten days.
The printing house's lawyers have already announced that they will protest this decision of the Kirov District Court. The head of the legal department of the enterprise, Nina Bogova, explains: “Ural Worker” cannot be held responsible for the technical execution of the order, since the agreement with the publishing houses stipulates that “U-Factoria” assumes all responsibility for the content of the books.
Now all "subversive" literature must be destroyed. The press service of the court explained that since the issue of liquidation of books lies outside the sanctions of the article under which the lawsuit was filed, the State Drug Control Department must decide for itself how to get rid of the seized literature. Yesterday, the government department admitted that over the past month, no way to liquidate books has been invented. All confiscated copies (895 copies of “Club Culture” and 913 copies of “Culture of the Times of the Apocalypse” are only a quarter of the total 6 thousand books published) are still in the department.
Director of the U-Faktoriya publishing house Alexander Biserov says that a decision on the fate of the books will be made only after the trial against his company. As at the beginning of this trial, the publisher insists: the fight against books is a tentative step, a precedent for massive interference in book publishing and the introduction of censorship. To combat this, U-Factoria has already published “Club Culture” on its website so that anyone can familiarize themselves with the book. At the forum, the opinions of readers were divided, although the majority agreed that the lawsuit by the State Drug Control Service only gave the book additional advertising.