Preliminary comments by SOVA on the report on non-discrimination presented by Russia to the UN

Russia submitted its regular report to the UN Committee on elimination of racial discrimination on the implementation of the International Convention on elimination of all forms of racial discrimination.

The full report is available on the UN website in Word format .

It will be considered at the next session of the Committee (February-March 2013).

We will present only those fragments that relate to "anti-extremist law enforcement" and give the briefest comments on them.

The report includes a description of development activities ethno-religious tolerance, enumeration of the legal norms, as well as those departments and their divisions that are involved in "counteraction to extremist activity".

The report also includes some statistics:

117. Statistical data testify to the growth of manifestations of extremism in the Russian Federation in 2008-2010 and their decline in 2011. Thus, in 2008 in Russia law enforcement agencies revealed 460 crimes of extremist nature, in 2009 - 548, in 2010 - 656, in 2011 - 622 (see Table). At This increase in the number of detected crimes is partly due to the introduction of relevant changes to the criminal law aimed at establishing the motives for committed extremist offenses, their correct qualifications (expansion of qualifying signs of crimes under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), as well as the revitalization of activities law enforcement agencies to identify and suppress them.

118. Analyzing the state of extremist crime orientation, it is necessary to take into account that statistical data are not always reflect an objective picture of the spread of extremist manifestations, since such crimes are characterized by a certain degree of latency. This is partly due to the inaction of the victims themselves, who do not apply in a timely manner with appropriate statements to law enforcement agencies. Except This, there are features of statistical accounting of crimes of extremist orientation. Thus, most violent crimes at the moment crimes are recorded according to general criminal statistics. The extremist motive is revealed, usually later in the course of the investigation.

119. In general, the structure of extremist crime rate indicates the predominance of crimes against the person (intentional infliction of light, medium, severe bodily harm, beatings, death threats), public safety and public order (hooliganism), as well as against state power (inciting hatred and enmity).

120. The most common, as in previous years, there remain crimes under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Their number in 2010 amounted to 41.5% of the total number of registered extremist crimes, in 2011 - 38.9%. According to according to statistics, in 2010 272 crimes were committed under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (in 2009 - 223), and 51 crimes under Article 280 of the Criminal Code RF (in 2009 - 45). In 2011 - 242 and 61 crimes respectively.

	*Violated legal
norms*	2008	2009	2010	2011	Height/
decline
*(2010-2011),
%*
Total crimes	460	548	656	622	- 5.2
In
including:	p. "l" part 2 of article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation	17	19	18	5	-5.3
p. "e" part 2 of article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation	6	10	5	eleven	-50.0
p. "e" part 2 of article 112 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation	6	12	eleven	7	-8.3
p. "b" part 2 of article 115 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation	6	47	47	36	0.0
p. "b" part 2 of article 116 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation	55	73	97	88	+32.9
part 2 of article 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation	25	eleven	24	21	+118.2
p. "b" part 1 of article 213 of the Criminal Code	12	14	26	27	+85.7
Article 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation	29	45	51	61	+13.3
Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation	182	223	272	242	+22.0
Article 282-1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation	18	19	23	17	+21.1
Article 282-2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation	24	20	27	65	+35.0

121. Number of homicides committed by extremist motives in 2010 and qualified under paragraph "l" part 2 Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation decreased by 5.3% compared to 2009. (18 murders), in 2011 - by 72.2% (5 kills).

122. At the same time, more than doubled the number of crimes under paragraph "e" part 2 of Art. 111 UK Russian Federation ("Intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm, <...> committed on the grounds of political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or motivated by hatred or hostility towards any social group") - 11 crimes (+ 120 %, for the same period last year (hereinafter - APPG) - 5).

123. In 2011, the number of crimes related to the organization of the activities of an extremist organization. In total, 65 crimes were identified under Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which is 140.7% more than last year (APPG - 27), 11 persons were convicted.

124. Reducing the number of detected crimes extremist orientation in 2011 occurred in the Central - 196 (-23.1 % to APPG - 255), Siberian - 51 (-30.1% to APPG - 73), North Caucasus - 51 (-3.8% to APPG - 53) and the Far East - 24 (-20.0% to APPG - 30) federal districts. At the same time, marked a significant increase in crimes of this category in the North-West -73 (+17.7% to APPG - 62) and Southern - 48 (+71.4% to APPG - 28) federal districts, relative growth in Privolzhsky - 120 (+9.1% to APPG - 110) and Urals - 46 (+9.5% to APPG - 42) federal districts. The most complex in number and the severity of extremist manifestations on ethnic and religious grounds is still remains the Moscow region.

125. In Moscow for the first time in recent For several years there has been a decrease in the number of crimes committed. extremist orientation to 76. Meanwhile, in 2010 in the capital there were 105 such crimes were registered, and the number of murders by extremist motives increased by 1.5 times. The peak was in 2008-2010 - if in the first six months of 2007, 13 crimes were registered in the city extremism, then in the first half of 2008 - 73.

As stated in the report, statistics are given precisely on dynamics of instituted criminal cases for all “crimes of extremist character”, and, according to the report, 33 articles of the Criminal Code now correspond to them. So Thus, statistics, on the one hand, do not take into account those violent crimes that were not duly qualified in a timely manner, with on the other hand, such statistics do not take into account the termination of cases, acquittal, derivation of the "hate motive" from the accusation or sentence, as well as the addition such a motive at a later point in the investigation.

Of course, the statistics collected by the SOVA Center crimes is also extremely incomplete, so comparing these two statistics difficult. One can only say that the law enforcement bodies, statistics rather reflect the intensification of their own activities, and not the crime rate. According to our data, racist violence peaked in 2008, after which its level has steadily declined.

A Here is a comparison of the given figures with the statistics we have collected of sentences (see the appendix in the report “Between Manezhnaya and Bolotnaya: Xenophobia and radical nationalism and opposition to them in 2011 in Russia" ) quite possible, given that from the initiation of a criminal case to The average sentence is less than a year.

The first thing that strikes us in the above table, this is a fairly significant number of cases under Art. 119 of the Criminal Code ("Threat murder or causing grievous bodily harm"): we do not know much such cases.

Second - let's sum up the number of identified violent crimes motivated by hate. The table includes not all, but all the main relevant articles of the Criminal Code; must also take into account that in in recent years, the qualification of violent acts under Article 282 of the Criminal Code has become rare. According to the report, it turns out in 2008 - 102 identified violent crimes motivated by hate, in 2009 - 175, in 2010 - 204, in 2011 - 174. Until 2011, these figures are much lower than those known by the SOVA Center monitoring of hate crimes, and in 2011 the data are almost the same. This is probably due in part to improved police work and in part to greater covertness of hate crimes for our monitoring. If you look at the number of convictions for such crimes that take into account the hate motive, taking 1 year as the average duration of the investigation, then in 2009 52 sentences, in 2010 - 91, in 2011 - 59. Many sentences have several crimes, so that these data are more or less consistent with each other. This means that only a small percentage of cases do not reach a legal verdict. And this should also be considered progress in law enforcement.

It is unfortunate that the report itself does not contain data on the sentences passed.

Propaganda crimes - under articles 280 and 282 of the Criminal Code - do not lend themselves to any reasonable accounting, since the border of criminality in such cases in practice is too subjective. Therefore, the SOVA Center does not such statistics (and we consider some of these sentences explicitly illegal, and some are controversial). One can only compare the quantity filed cases (according to these articles, several "acts of propaganda" are clearly not counted separately, so that crimes in the report are recorded simply by the number of cases initiated) with the number of sentences.

Combining articles 280 and 282, we get the following results: in 2008 211 cases were filed in 2009, 268 in 2009, 323 in 2010, and 303 in 2011. crimes investigation can be on average and shorter than a year. If you look at our data on sentences, we will see what kind of propaganda was issued in 2008 year - 44 sentences, in 2009 - 56, in 2010 - 72, in 2011 - also 72, and by July 24 2012 - already 50. Probably, we do not know all the sentences, but undoubtedly - their vast majority. Thus, it turns out that the vast majority of cases about "extremist propaganda" do not reach the court.

It is difficult to say what exactly is taken into account in the report under Article 282-1 of the Criminal Code, involving participation in an "extremist community" - cases or accused. Most likely the accused. Compare the above figures with the number of people convicted under this article. In 2009 he was convicted, according to our data, 7 people, in 2010 - 30, in 2011 - 21, in 2012 - so far none. Situation, when there are more convicts than cases opened, can only mean incompleteness statistics presented in the report (probably part of the convicts who have Article 282-1 was not the main article of the accusation, and it is usually not the main one, not included in the report).

Apparently, according to Article 282-2 of the Criminal Code, which implies the continuation of activities banned (in some cases illegally, in our opinion) organization, report counts the accused. Unfortunately, at the moment we are not yet ready to summarize their data on convicts under this article, starting from 2009, but judging by data for 2011 (34 convicts), cases under Art. 282-2 and regularly reach court, and normally accounted for in the report.

The report also includes some data on other measures countermeasures (prevention, prohibition of organizations, prohibition of “extremist materials”, blocking access to them on the Internet, etc.). Provided statistics of anti-extremist media warnings issued by authorities Roskomnadzor:

•  “in 2006, issued 39 warnings with signs of extremism, of which for inciting a national discord - 16; for inciting religious hatred - 6; for propaganda of fascism - 4;

•  in 2007 44 warnings were issued, of which 24 were for inciting ethnic hatred; behind incitement of religious discord - 4; for propaganda of fascism - 2;

•  in 2008 28 warnings were issued, of which 18 were for inciting ethnic hatred; behind incitement of religious discord - 3; for propaganda of fascism - 2;

•  in 2009 33 warnings were issued, of which 14 were for inciting ethnic hatred; behind incitement of religious discord - 3; for propaganda of fascism - 6;

•  in 2010 28 warnings were issued, of which 8 were for inciting ethnic hatred; behind incitement of religious discord - 4; for propaganda of fascism - 1;

•  in 2011 25 warnings were issued, of which 8 were for inciting ethnic hatred; behind incitement of religious discord - 2; for propaganda of fascism - 1.

155. In addition, in accordance with paragraph 6 of paragraph 23 Decree of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated June 15, 2010 No. 16 "On the practice of application by the courts of the Law of the Russian Federation "On mass media" from June 2010 to 2011, as amended electronic periodicals and news agencies by Roskomnadzor 191 appeals were sent to delete or edit comments to materials containing information with signs of extremism (including incitement of racial, national and religious hatred, propaganda of fascism).

Statistical data on the number of warnings issued coincide with the monitoring data of the SOVA center (See for example data for 2011 in the chapter “Other Administrative Measures” of the report « Between Manezhnaya and Bolotnaya: Xenophobia and Radical Nationalism and opposition to them in 2011 in Russia "), there are minor discrepancies only for 2006   and 2007 _ We have repeatedly written that all these measures of Roskomnadzor are not always justified, and sometimes - clearly unlawful. We, unfortunately, not all the texts in connection with which warnings were issued are known, but our we gave estimates of the degree of their legitimacy in the annual reports of the SOVA Center (in In 2006, we considered 5 out of 38 warnings illegal, in 2007 - 8 out of 43 warnings, in 2008 - 6 out of 28, in 2009 - 15 out of 33, in 2010-2011 10 out of 28 and 25 each respectively).

Let's pay attention also on rare data on the anti-extremist actions of the prosecutor's office in relation to MASS MEDIA:

163. Simultaneously, in 2011, prosecutors conducted 2,398 inspections publications in the media (APPG-2783), 727 violations of laws were revealed (APPG-508), 368 acts of prosecutorial response (APPG-409) were adopted.”

Unfortunately, we cannot comment on these figures, as how the activities of the prosecutor's office in this area are much less public than activities of Roskomnadzor bodies.