"Groundhog Day" for a Mari priest

On October 20, 2008, it became known that the latest decision of the Yoshkar-Ola city court, by which Vitaly Tanakov's brochure "The Priest Speaks" was not recognized as extremist, was again canceled by the Judicial Collegium for Civil Cases of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Mari El. The case was returned to the same court for a new trial.

The basis for this decision was some violations in the course of the previous process, discovered by the judicial board.

The prosecutor's office builds its position on the fact that Tanakov was found guilty in 2006 of humiliating citizens on the grounds of nationality and attitude to religion, as well as inciting social hatred (part 1, article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and hence the text itself, for which he was convicted, should, in the opinion of the prosecutor's office, be recognized as extremist.

Let us remind you that we do not consider Tanakov's 2006 verdict, nor the current claims against the brochure, to be justified.

Yoshkar-Ola city court will consider this case for the fifth time.

On October 24, 2008, at a preliminary meeting of the City Court, it was decided that the next, already fifth, examination of the brochure would be carried out at the Interregional Institute of Independent Forensic Examinations in Moscow.

Sources

• Case of Mari priest Tanakov sent for retrial // Civitas.ru. 2008. October 20.
• Moscow will deal with the brochure of the Mari priest // Civitas.ru. 2008. October 24.