Daily Journal:

I must say that today’s list turned out to be quite adequate. This is not shooting sparrows from a cannon, as it might seem at first glance. Firstly, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that Dobrovolsky is quite a popular author, and his books are sold in huge editions, including in Moscow. The brochure “Cerberus of Freedom” (in fact, it is a newspaper, it’s just not registered as a media outlet) and the newspaper “I am Russian” are small-circulation, but quite popular publications that were distributed, including via the Internet, absolutely freely and were accessible to a huge number of people. readers. And the materials published on the “People's Control” website are texts that openly approve of the Azerbaijani pogroms in Kharagun and provoke mass protests in defense of the pogromists on the grounds that these people allegedly robbed Azerbaijani houses and burned them in self-defense. So the list is quite adequate - the main thing that makes me happy about this list is that I do not see texts banned for political reasons.
There is also no here what I call bureaucratic idiocy - the previous list included the book of Abd al-Wahhab, the ban of which is still difficult to come to terms with. Simply because it is stupid to ban a book by an 18th century theologian, no matter how radically it was later interpreted. Well, the 18th century did not know tolerance, but then there was no TNT with airplanes.
Important point. According to all the materials included in this list (except for the newspaper “Russian Transbaikalia”, for which the process has not yet been completed), there are real court cases in which real people were convicted. That is, this is not just the recognition of a certain material as extremist, but this is the result of a trial of a specific person who distributed or wrote specific materials. And there was a double court decision: he was found guilty of inciting national hatred and, therefore, the materials he wrote were recognized as extremist.
And, nevertheless, the very principle, the very idea of ​​​​banned books seems to me somewhat dubious - this opens up a large field for abuse. Although there are texts on this list that I myself would prohibit. But it is still not very clear what banned books are. It is clear that from the moment the court recognizes a particular material as prohibited, criminal liability is imposed for its distribution. But, for example, there is the issue with libraries - it is obvious that many books are of interest to researchers, etc. And this mechanism has not been worked out at all, because if a book is already in the library, no one will take it away, but the library has no right to purchase a new one. And the person who, for example, sells or donates it to a library will be responsible for the distribution of extremist literature. And exactly which of the visitors has access to this book, and how this access should be limited - this is also not determined by law.
Moreover, as regards this particular “black list”, it, like the previous one, is far from complete. For example, I don’t know - we just didn’t have time or for some other reasons, but it did not include the books of Said Nursi, which are also banned in our country according to a court decision. These are books by a Turkish theologian, his followers in Russia are completely peaceful, but now they all fall under criminal liability for distributing extremist literature - all 14 Russian translations of Said Nursi are recognized as extremist. It must be said that in Turkey, not the most liberal country in the world, the texts of Nursi, not the most loyal person to the Turkish authorities, but quite the opposite, are allowed. Although the Turkish government does not like Nursi very much.
I believe that it is necessary to post a complete list of prohibited literature somewhere. Because for now the lists are published in pieces. The current one is those books that were banned from July to October 2007. And secondly, I don’t know who should do this - Rosregistration or the Supreme Court - but it is necessary to add to these lists an explanation that “Mein Kampf” and similar books are not included in this list, because they are automatically recognized as extremist by law , which contains the wording - “extremist materials are the works of ideologists of Nazi Germany.” I personally observed, after the publication of the lists, real jubilation on right-wing radical sites over the fact that Mein Kampf was not in them. So it is necessary to explain that there was no court decision specifically on Mein Kampf in Russia, because all of Hitler’s works are a priori, by law, extremist. We need to remind you about this separately.
Unfortunately, court decisions and publications of such lists do not really stop anyone, because there is no established, good mechanism that would allow them to control this. But I am glad that this particular list includes those materials that deserve it.

Galina Kozhevnikova - Deputy Director of the Information and Analytical Center "SOVA", Candidate of Historical Sciences.