Unlawful anti-extremism in September 2011

Misuse of anti-extremist legislation in the first autumn month of 2011 remained within the framework, indicated by us in the report dedicated to the first half of the year, published September 22nd.

Criminal prosecution

In September, two criminal cases were initiated: in Cheboksary against a member of the religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (inciting religious hatred) and in Sterlitamak (Bashkortostan) against a group Muslims for alleged membership in the radical organization Hizb ut-Tahrir by hh. 1 and 2 Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

There were also three convictions. Behind membership in the banned NBP in Murmansk was convicted of one person. In Ulyanovsk under the same article (282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), as well as under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (inciting hatred) a follower of the theologian was sentenced to a year of corrective labor Said Nursi.

I would like to draw special attention to the condemnation of Kaliningrad, the publisher of the Far Far Away Region newspaper Boris Obraztsov. He was found guilty of humiliating the dignity of a group of persons on the grounds of religious accessories using the media (part 1 of article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and fined 110 thousand rubles. We note this case for two reasons. First, although Obraztsov allowed himself really offensive remarks regarding representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church and the church and believers in general, we do not consider this sufficient for criminal prosecution. In general, in our opinion, humiliation of dignity should be decriminalized and transferred to the category of administrative offenses. Secondly, although the court found him guilty, we must give him due: the desire of the prosecutor to put Obraztsov in jail for one and a half of the year. Moreover, the punishment was imposed only slightly above the minimum, provided by the code.

Administrative persecution

In September, only one illegal administrative verdict. In Saratov, a member of the Yabloko party was fined 2,000 rubles under Art. 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (distribution extremist materials) for the fact that on his page on the network "VKontakte" for some time hung a link to the video, over time time recognized as extremist.

Prohibition of materials for extremism

In September, from the next update of the Federal List extremist materials, it became known that on July 22 in Kirov there was banned one of the sites of supporters of Eduard Limonov www.nbp-info.ru.

In addition, in Naberezhnye Chelny, 13 titles of Ron Hubbard's works. According to representatives Church of Scientology, they learned about the ban from the press, the trial was over in one day behind closed doors. An appeal has already been filed against this decision (of which the Ministry of Justice was informed) that these materials should not be ended up on the Federal List before the decision came into effect (as already happened with Scientology materials).

Other illegal actions

In this section, I would like to note the dismissal from teaching position of Andrei Kutuzov, previously convicted under Part 1 of Art. 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (public calls for extremist activity) for the manufacture and distribution of leaflets with the call "Cops to the wall!". The defense had evidence of falsification of evidence by the prosecution, but the court did not take it into account. Tyumen State University, where Kutuzov taught translation studies, dismissed him on his own initiative, although the court, rejecting the demand prosecutor's office, did not include in the sentence a ban on teaching activity.

Among the actions taken by security forces departments, I would like to highlight the operation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Moscow Region with medieval name "Apostates", organized against followers of the creed of Jehovah's Witnesses. A range of measures has been conceived, from collecting information about the branches of the organization before entering individuals into the database "Extremist".

Sanctions against "passers-by"

Into the category of "accidental" victims of wrongful application of anti-extremist legislation in the above-mentioned report on first half of 2011, we included those who are not affiliated with social and political activities, does not belong to religious minorities, does not write for opposition media, in a word, is not representative of the most vulnerable groups, but nevertheless faces illegal anti-extremism.

The most striking example of such "accidental" victims are the heads of libraries, whose unenviable position we have been writing about for more than a year. In September after the summer lull we again observed a surge in the activity of prosecutors in this field: at least ten once this month, libraries have faced inspections and subsequent sanctions (the previous record was in June 2011, when 7 such cases). Fortunately, none of the ten cases were related to administrative persecution of directors.

Another example is the lawsuits filed by prosecutors against Internet providers with demands to block access to sites that are not recognized as extremist, but published certain or prohibited materials, or materials, who appeared extremist to the prosecutor's office. In September, similar lawsuits took place in Yoshkar-Ola, Saratov, Ufa and Nazran. Most Internet Service Providers consider themselves responsible for the content, but, unfortunately, the existing legislation is interpreted by the courts (including the Supreme court ) in such a way that similar orders to Internet service providers are possible. In our opinion, this is an unlawful practice, since it leads to such absurd solutions, such as blocking large Internet portals entirely due to published there separate materials.

Countering illegal anti-extremism

Finally, about one encouraging statement of the chapter Roskomnadzor Sergei Sitnikov.

Earlier we wrote about the history around the portal "Live Kuban", faced with the need to prove their right illustrate materials with photographs with Nazi symbols, if necessary requires a reportage genre. So far, journalists have failed because they were presented the law "On perpetuating the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945", unambiguously and completely impractically prohibiting any demonstration of Nazi or similar symbols.

The editor-in-chief of the portal managed to discuss this situation with Sergei Sitnikov, who promised to send a letter to the Directorate of the Prosecutor General's Office in the Southern Federal District with a request to withdraw the claim against the portal, as well as to create an interdepartmental group that will " eliminate Contradictions in legislation regarding the qualification of images of Nazi symbols - so that similar situations do not arise in Russia again.

Of course, from the statement to the real change legislation, there are still many steps to be taken, but the very fact that the leader Roskomnadzor recognizes the problem and is ready to solve it, which makes us very happy.