Omsk leftist activist sentenced

On February 3, 2011, the Central District Court of Omsk ruled sentence to the activist of the movement "Left Front" Anatoly Yurkovets, accused under part 1 of Art. 282 (incitement of social hatred), paragraph "b" part 1 of Art. 213 (hooliganism based on political, ideological hatred or enmity, in relation to any social group) and Art. 329 (desecration of the State flag of the Russian Federation) of the Criminal Code RF.

He was found guilty on all counts except 282 and sentenced to one year suspended sentence with one year's probation.

Yurkovets was charged with posting leaflets ("Policeman arbitrariness" and "You chose - you judge!"), as well as participation in clash at the picket, during which he snatched the Russian flag from his hands one of the picketers and broke the shaft.

Recent reports say that the picket conducted by members of the "Young Guard of United Russia", while in earlier news on this topic reported that the picket, which was held youth "Yabloko" and "Siberian Confederation of Labor", attacked by unknown people with Russian flags in their hands, provoking a brawl. Yurkovets denied his guilt from the very beginning, claiming that he defended himself against the attackers and was himself beaten. We do not know the true circumstances of the collision.

The court acknowledged that Yurkovets did put up leaflets and referred to the opinion of experts who came to the conclusion that these leaflets incited hostility towards such groups as "representatives of state power", "law enforcement officials", etc. On the other hand, the court did not agree with these conclusions, and also took into account the opinion of the defense that "police officers and representatives of state power are not a social group, but another group united on a professional basis", and that it has not been established in which environment These leaflets were called upon to stir up enmity among the social group, since supposedly enmity is meant precisely between groups.

We can only welcome this decision, despite the contentiousness of the last argument.

It is also interesting that the court rejected the prosecution's reference to the fact that the leaflet "You have chosen - you will judge!" was previously recognized as extremist material, tk. when considering the issue of banning the leaflet, a text appeared that also included some afterword, which was absent in this case.

On March 24, 2011, the verdict entered into force.

Sources

• Omsk: LF activist Anatoly Yurkovets sentenced to a year of probation // Website of the "Left Front" movement. 2011. February 3.
• Sentence. Case No. 1-11/2011 // Website of the Central District Court of Omsk. 2011. February 3.