Prosecutors do not read the law “On Combating Extremist Activities.” Court too

On March 24, 2010, the Kirovsky District Court of Ufa, at the suit of the district prosecutor's office, recognized Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" as extremist material.

In our opinion, the recognition of "Mein Kampf" as extremist material is nothing but an imitation of anti-extremist activity. The Federal Law "On counteracting extremist activity" refers to extremist materials and directly prohibits the publication and mass distribution of "the works of the leaders of the National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, the Fascist Party of Italy" (Part 3, Article 1 of the law). Accordingly, the law does not provide for the need for judicial decisions on these texts.

For some reason - for the first time in 8 years of the existence of the law and 6 years of the existence of the practice of banning materials - the prosecution authorities decided to interpret this direct ban as something like a hint to the court: the message on the website of the Prosecutor General's Office says that the ban in the law "is the basis for automatic recognition their extremist materials and does not require additional argumentation and expertise" .

It is not clear what exactly the court was supposed to establish in this case. It is possible whether a book written by the leader of Nazi Germany is a "work", or whether Hitler was the leader of the NSDAP.

Recall that before the current precedent, law enforcement agencies had no difficulty in applying Part 3 of Art. 1 of the Federal Law "On counteracting extremist activity". In particular, already in 2009, a warning to the magazine "National Business in Tyumen" was motivated by a direct ban .

Sources

• Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" is recognized as extremist literature at the suit of the prosecutor's office // Official website of the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia. 2010. March 26.