Warning for criticizing right-wing radicals

In the first quarter of 2007, the Upper Volga Territorial Administration of the Federal Service for Supervision of Compliance with Legislation in the Sphere of Mass Communications and the Protection of Cultural Heritage (Rosokhrakultura) issued a warning "for using the media to carry out extremist activities" to the newspaper "Echo of the Week -33" for publishing an article " Lord of the Earth" September 26, 2006

It should be reminded that a statement in September 2006 about the need to check the publication "for extremism" was sent to the Prosecutor's Office of the Vladimir Region by the regional non-profit partnership Golos. The appeal was connected with the fact that a large image of a swastika was used as an illustration for the article.

Probably, the case was transferred from the prosecutor's office to Rosokhrankultura, which issued a warning.

The conflict, however, lies in the fact that the swastika was just an illustration of an essentially anti-fascist article. The text analyzes the program documents of the Eurasian Youth Union (a far-right organization that, let us recall, became the formal organizer of the "Right March" - 2005 in Moscow). Based on this analysis, a conclusion was made about the "fascist" nature of the organization, and then the mayor of the city of Kovrov, Irina Tabatskova (a former member of the NBP, who apparently belonged to the right, Dugin wing of the party ), supporting the ESM-sheep, was accused of "connections with the fascists ".

Regardless of the validity of the accusations made in the publication (let us recall that Golos activists consider an article in a newspaper controlled by United Russia to be an example of the use of anti-fascist rhetoric to discredit a political opponent from the Party of Life), it is in no way propaganda any extremist theses, and the swastika used as an illustration can hardly be evaluated separately from the context of the publication. Perhaps the charges brought against Irina Tabatskova could become the subject of a civil suit for the protection of honor and dignity. But we consider the warning "for extremism" issued to the newspaper to be unjustified.

Whether the newspaper will challenge the warning is unknown.

Carpet Hope. Lord of the earth // Echo of the week-33. 2006. September 26 (A copy of the publication was provided to the SOVA center by the Golos organization).

Sources

• [List of Rosokhrankultura warnings] // Official site of Rosokhrankultura. B.d.