6 thousand experts alone...

October 12, 2010 Center for the Study of Extremism Petersburg University reported on the work carried out since official opening of the Center ( February 2010 ).

According to the head of the center Sergey Kuznetsov, in just during this period, it received 300 appeals (mostly initiated law enforcement agencies) with requests to check certain publications “on extremism". 120 examinations have already been carried out, and in 80 cases the experts did not find "signs of extremism". The staff of the Center clarified that publications in registered media among there are few objects of attention of applicants - only 10 cases. Basically requests associated with Internet publications.

Speakers noted that the practice of dealing with requests showed that "for extremism" they often try to attract to resolve polemical differences between politicians or to punish sharp political criticism.

Unfortunately, it remains unclear how the status of the Center itself, as well as the status of the examination, which is carried out by him. According to the context of speeches S. Kuznetsova, this is a pre- or out-of-court examination (i.e., either preliminary conclusion, on the basis of which law enforcement agencies a decision is made to initiate or dismiss a criminal case and which is later not can be used in court, or examination for administrative punishments, for example, Roskomnadzor warnings). For example, it is known that the Center did examination on the banned anti-Chechen article in the encyclopedia of the publishing house "Terra" ( and did not find extremism in it ). But this examination did not appear in court. The "acquittal" examination of the article "The New Che Guevara" in the newspaper "Trudovaya Gatchina" did not figure in the court either.

Describing the activities of the structure, S. Kuznetsov stated that “ the organizational board of the center is represented by ten employees who act as moderators, distributing tasks among 6 thousand teachers [highlighted us - *ed. ] working at St Petersburg University this moment*".

Sources

• Romanova Svetlana. Expert: "The number of extremist statements in unregistered media is growing and expanding" // Lenizdat.Ru. 2010. October 12.
• Brown Roman. The framework of extremism // Shum.Ru. 2010. October 13.