The Strange Case of Leonid Feitlicher

In June 2010, the confrontation continued between representatives of the Saratov branch of the United Russia party and the deputy of the Saratov City Duma, businessman Leonid Feitlicher.

Previously, we only barely touched on this topic, because... Most of the materials to which both sides appealed were (and remain) inaccessible to us, and the legal battles were not formally conducted on “extremist” issues.

The chronology of events is as follows.

In December 2008, at least two regional newspapers launched a campaign aimed at discrediting L. Feitlicher, which was apparently xenophobic, in particular anti-Semitic, in nature.

The xenophobic nature of the publications (unfortunately, inaccessible to us) is indirectly evidenced by the anti-extremist warnings Roskomnadzor issued to the publications “Our Version in Saratov” and “Open Text”.

Even before the warnings were issued, both L. Feitlicher himself and representatives of the Jewish community of the region tried to draw attention to the problem of anti-Semitic propaganda, which was associated with the activity of the local branch of United Russia. In August 2009, the entrepreneur sent a non-public and evaluative letter to D. Medvedev, and a month later, in September, Saratov Rabbi Michael Frumin contacted the Saratov Regional Prosecutor's Office. He asked for a legal assessment of the mentioned media campaign, which he also considered anti-Semitic.

Unfortunately, we do not know what the reaction of the prosecutor's office was. But the story of the letter to the President of Russia acquired an all-Russian scope.

Civil claims against L. Feitlicher were filed by United Russia members mentioned in this letter. In particular, State Duma deputy Nikolai Pankov demanded a million rubles from him, and the Saratov regional branch of the United Russia party demanded two. The entrepreneur lost all legal proceedings on this matter in the Saratov region (and is obliged to pay the plaintiffs “almost a million rubles”).

The Kommersant newspaper, which covered the conflict, also lost in court.

At the same time, it should be noted that at one of the court hearings, one of the representatives of United Russia openly told Feitlicher’s lawyer that he needed to leave for Israel with his client.

In June 2010, the situation related to the “anti-Semitic scandal” in the Saratov region was proposed to be submitted for consideration to the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for promoting the development of civil society institutions and human rights.

At the same time, it became known that the European Court of Human Rights had accepted several complaints in this case for consideration.

In addition, the litigation continues in Saratov itself. Thus, on June 22, 2010, the Kirovsky District Court of Saratov declared illegal the failure to provide L. Feitlicher with materials from checking media “that allowed the publication of materials containing signs of extremism” (apparently, this means materials on the basis of which the newspapers mentioned above received anti-extremist warnings).

Based on materials from the media and websites of government agencies for 2009-2010.

Sources

• The inaction of Roskomnadzor authorities is recognized as illegal // Version (Saratov). 2010. June 22.
• Petrov Sergey. “Saratov incidents” reached the Kremlin // Rosbalt. 2010. June 2.
• The European Court accepted complaints against United Russia // Gazeta.Ru. 2010. June 22.