General cartoon of the Russian Federation

Politicians and security officials took up non-canonical illustrations

The flashes of “cartoon battles” that swept across the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe and, as it seemed, bypassed Russia, still did not pass without consequences for our country. The enthusiasm with which representatives of the domestic political elite began to draw lessons from the scandal and prevent possible interfaith tensions suggests the start of a new campaign. Some representatives of Russian parties have set out to become holier than the Pope himself, as well as Alexy II, Ravil Gainutdin, Talgat Tadzhuddin, Berl Lazar and the Dalai Lama combined, and are now going to respond to any appearance in the press of non-canonical illustrative material with requests to law enforcement and supervisory authorities. Moreover, there is a possibility that law enforcement officers will be armed with a separate law for this purpose in order to promptly punish the guilty.

The Volgograd branch of United Russia demonstrated particular zeal in the struggle to preserve interfaith peace, whose members studied the illustrative series in the local print media. Heretics were discovered in the newspaper "City News", which allowed itself to illustrate one of its materials with a caricature depicting Christ, Moses, Buddha and the Prophet Muhammad. Although the drawing was harmless and even edifying - the cult characters depicted on it, watching on TV two crowds of people ready to clash, sadly remark: “We didn’t teach them this,” - the leader of the Volgograd United Russia Oleg Kersanov suspected that this too could offend feelings believers. And he immediately interceded.

The Volgograd branch of United Russia initiated a letter to the regional prosecutor Leonid Belyak with a request to “understand the legality of publishing a cartoon drawing.” The illustration was viewed from the same angle in several public organizations - in any case, the appeal to the prosecutor’s office bears the signatures of representatives of the movements “Mothers of Russia”, “Volgograd is a Clean City”, etc. All those who signed considered that the illustration in “City News” “may provoke a negative reaction from believers.” And the leaders of the Volgograd prosecutor's office agreed with this. Mr. Belyak sent a warning to the newspaper, in which he noted that “the publication of such cartoons, based on the realities of the complex interreligious situation in the world and in Russia, can cause inadequate perception on the part of believers, serve as a reason for attempts to incite religious hatred on the part of extremist forces and entail extremely negative consequences, including the commission of offenses and crimes on this basis.”

Moreover, the Volgograd prosecutor did not limit himself to political information, suggesting that the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Tatyana Kaminskaya, “take effective measures to prevent this from happening in the future.” Ms. Kaminskaya assures that the editors did not want to offend any of the believers. “The drawing, in my opinion, does not affect the religious feelings of citizens,” she told Vremya Novostey, expressing surprise at the instructions received from Mr. Belyak. “Probably, the prosecutor’s office saw in the illustration something completely different from what we intended.” But yesterday it became clear that “effective measures to prevent it” will still be taken, and at a different level. The General Prosecutor's Office became interested in the work of Volgograd cartoonists. Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Nikolai Shepel, speaking at a press conference in Vladikavkaz, said that his department, together with the Volgograd prosecutor’s office, is conducting a pre-investigation check of the publication in Gorodskie Vesti for signs of a crime falling under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (inciting interethnic and interfaith hatred ). Mr. Shepel assured that an examination of the drawing would be carried out “with the involvement of linguists, and the opinion of representatives of three world faiths would also be sought.” And at the same time, he did not rule out that the newspaper would be punished based on the results of the audit.

The prospect of “depriving the license” of the Volgograd newspaper, outlined by Nikolai Shepel, has already caused bewilderment in the media community. Firstly, because print media do not have any licenses. And secondly, because from a professional point of view the drawing is quite innocent. “It is clear to any lawyer that the newspaper cannot bear any responsibility for the publication of such a picture. There can be no legal liability here at all, just as there can be no talk of insulting the feelings of believers,” Mikhail Fedotov, secretary of the Union of Journalists of Russia, told Vremya Novostei. “Of course, it is possible to conduct an art examination, but this is a shame for our prosecutor’s office.” Mr. Fedotov recalled that professionals from Rosokhrankultura should monitor extremist publications, which, as a registration body, has the right to issue a warning to the media, and if the warning is repeated, to raise the issue of stopping the publication of the publication before the court.

But today many people seem ready to take on the function of this federal service. In any case, yesterday, without any examination and, moreover, without even a single glance at the drawing from the Volgograd City News, there were many in Russia who wanted to evaluate the actions of journalists. The free treatment of cult characters, for example, was not to the liking of the President of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. “Buddha, Christ, Muhammad are prophets who once actually lived, and the fact that there were artists who drew caricatures of them touches our souls,” this high-ranking Buddhist said yesterday, without even noticing, that his speech could offend Orthodox Christians who revere Jesus as the son of God.

“There are no harmless caricatures depicting gods, be it Christ, Muhammad or Buddha,” says Yuri Sharandin, head of the Committee on Constitutional Legislation of the Federation Council, who yesterday supported the actions of the Volgograd prosecutor’s office. The senator told Interfax that the media must be held accountable by law for publishing materials that offend religious feelings. “Up to and including deregistration!” - Mr. Sharandin emphasized.

And Rosokhrankultura itself also believes that it is time, under the threat of deregistration, to increase the responsibility of journalists in our difficult time of interfaith conflicts. “If any Russian media outlet publishes materials that offend the religious feelings of believers, then measures provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation will be immediately applied to it, up to and including deprivation of registration,” a representative of this department warned the Russian media community through RIA Novosti. True, the decisiveness of the supervisory authority seems to have confused even the Minister of Culture and Mass Communications, Alexander Sokolov. Commenting yesterday on the statement of his subordinates, Mr. Sokolov tried to soften his position, clarifying that the actions of Rosokhrankultura should not be perceived as a dictate, and the boundaries of what is permitted must be outlined to the journalists themselves.

But such soft-heartedness may not please representatives of the ruling party, who seem to be trying to seize the initiative from their State Duma colleagues from the Rodina faction, who were the first to respond to the cartoon scandal in Europe by writing a bill on criminal liability for the desecration of religious shrines. It is noteworthy that the author of the law, designed to prevent public insult to religious symbols and protect the feelings of believers, was deputy Alexander Chuev - the same one whose signature was on the scandalous appeal to the Prosecutor General's Office demanding that the activities of Jewish public organizations be checked for extremism. Exactly a week ago, Mr. Chuev proposed adding a new article to the Criminal Code establishing liability for “desecration of images, printed publications, other objects or materials that are religious shrines, committed publicly or using the media.” Yesterday, Vice Speaker of the State Duma from United Russia Lyubov Sliska spoke about criminal liability for publishing materials that offend the feelings of believers, recalling that the 1961 Criminal Code had an article for such violations, and it provided for punishment of up to three years in prison . “Perhaps we shouldn’t take any too harsh measures now, but, of course, we need to look at how to make sure that our legislation prevents those who do not respect religious feelings,” Ms. Sliska told Interfax.

Against this background, embellished by another vice-speaker of the State Duma, the leader of the LDPR, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who even proposed “a law to prohibit journalists from touching on religious and national topics,” timid calls not to stoop to inquisitorial methods remain practically unnoticed. Although, for example, Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council Dmitry Mezentsev is convinced that “every case needs to be dealt with very carefully, sometimes it is easier to draw the attention of the media to certain problems than to apply punitive or harsh sanctions to them.”

Meanwhile, in Volgograd itself, believers look with great amazement at the heated debate on an all-Russian scale that flared up because of the drawing in “City News”. Leaders of local organizations that unite people not out of a desire to be closer to power, but on national and religious principles, even wrote an appeal to the mayor’s office, expressing their support for the newspaper’s management, the city’s vice-mayor Konstantin Kalachev told Vremya Novostey. According to the official in charge of information policy in the Volgograd administration, the drawing does not contain any signs of violation of the Constitution or the Criminal Code. Mr. Kalachev assured that “the mayor’s office is not going to hand over the editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Gorodskie Vesti” Tatyana Kaminskaya.”

Oleg VOLKOV, Yuri KOLESOV, Dmitry KUTEPOV, Volgograd