Unlawful anti-extremism in October 2012

We publish a review of the main and most significant events in the field of misuse of anti-extremist legislation in Russia in October 2012.

Rulemaking

In the second half of October The State Duma finally adopted a revision of a number of provisions of the articles of the Criminal Code on espionage and high treason, as well as the introduction of Art. 283.1 about illegal receipt information constituting a state secret. Under pressure from the public in the bill some changes have been made. In the new version of the definition of the state treason, the wording " actions directed against constitutional order, sovereignty , "however, the vague and ambiguous wording "help in activities against security Russian Federation" . Having approved the bill at the end of the month, The Federation Council decided to send an appeal to The Supreme Court with a request to consider the issue of law enforcement practice provisions of the approved document. According to members of the Federation Council, this will allow "to remove all the tensions that arose in society in connection with the adoption of this law ."

At first October it became known that Roskomnadzor is preparing recommendations to limit access for minors to public WiFi networks, justifying these actions online information control law. It was assumed that the connection to public WiFi network can be organized in the same way as the purchase of alcohol and tobacco: in case of doubt about the age of the buyer, they are asked to present a passport. Obviously, that such rules would be a material violation of the rights of users and caused a lot of technical difficulties. However, the very next day, apparently, in as a result of the uproar in the media, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications stated that that does not support this initiative of Roskomnadzor.

WITH On November 1, a mechanism for blocking websites with information, access to which, according to the law, must be closed to minors. WITH blocking results can be found on the website http://zapret-info.gov.ru/ . Mid October The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications has offered the Internet companies to be a part of founders of the future the operator of the registry of prohibited sites, however, representatives of large Internet companies responded to this proposal without enthusiasm. They drew attention to that they did not support the new law in the form in which it was adopted, and their proposals to develop a mechanism for its functioning were not taken into account and in As a result, the procedure for compiling the register remains unclear to them. They also expressed their belief that the state government should be responsible for the registry organ.

In the second mid-October, Roskomnadzor approved a temporary operating procedure register. It was agreed that until a registry operator is selected, it will be managed by Roskomnadzor. At the end of the month the prime minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a resolution on the implementation of the law on control over information on the network, reinforcing decisions made earlier. Note that, from our point of view, the mechanism of the functioning of the law has not been finalized and is still raises many questions.

This law was criticized by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council Europe, which in early October adopted a resolution on the legal situation in Russia based on the results of monitoring the implementation by Russia obligations to the CE.

Assembly also advised the Russian side to pay attention to the recommendations the Venice Commission, which gave its opinion on the Federal Law on Counteracting extremist activity and formulated proposals for its reform. PACE demanded an end application of anti-extremist legislation against religious communities, including Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as the unconditional release of the group members Pussy Riot, whose sentence they considered excessively harsh.

Criminal the pursuit

In October the situation around several illegal criminal cases was not in favor of accusations.

Yes, in the second half of the month, the Trans-Baikal Regional Court overturned the verdict of the Chita District court against Andrei and Lucia Raitin for hours. 1 Article. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (incitement of religious hatred), issued for distributing prohibited "for extremism" of the literature of Jehovah's Witnesses, closed the criminal case and recognized the right to rehabilitation for the Raitins. Thus, already the third criminal case against Jehovah's Witnesses, ended in an acquittal.

In mid-October, the Primorsky Regional Court overturned the verdict against the Other Russia activists in Vladivostok to Igor Popov and Alexander Kurov Art. 280 (public calls for extremist activity), part 1 Art. 282 (inciting social hatred) and Part 2 of Art. 282.2 (participation in extremist organization) of the Criminal Code. Popov and Kurov were accused of membership in the NBP banned for extremism, as well as inciting hatred towards representatives of the authorities and law enforcement agencies and were sentenced to large fines, but the cassation instance canceled verdict and sent the case back for a new trial due to procedural violations, admitted by the district court.

On the same days, the Nizhny Novgorod District Court returned the Antifa-RASH case to the prosecutor's office to eliminate violations, not allowed to consider the case on the merits. The court agreed that in the prosecution does not contain any indication of the specific actions of the defendants, who would talk about their participation in the extremist community, there are no evidence not only of their committing extremist actions, but even preparing them. In this situation, the court found it impossible to pass judgment and gave prosecutors a chance to present more convincing evidence of guilt anti-fascists. Recall that the process in the case of five activists of the movement "antifa" began in Nizhny Novgorod in March 2012. They are accused of creating extremist community and committing violent crimes motivated hostility towards "representatives of social groups of skinheads, football fans . "

In two cases, the court sentenced the defendants under criminal articles to suspended sentences.

At first October Leninsky District Court of Nizhny Novgorod passed a sentence against two teenagers accused of setting fire to the office building of the OZS deputy Vadim Zhuk ("United Russia") in Nizhny Novgorod. teenagers, accused under Part 2 of Art. 213 (hooliganism committed by a group of persons prior conspiracy motivated by hatred), Part 1 of Art. 222 (illegal circulation of weapons, ammunition and explosives) and Part 1 of Art. 223 (illegal manufacture of weapons) of the Criminal Code sentenced to 2 years probation 1.5 years and 2.5 years conditionally with a probationary period of 1.5 years, respectively. We do not agree with the use of concepts such as hooliganism motivated by hatred of social deputies from the United Russia party. From our point of view, deputies from of any party do not constitute a social group in need of the protection provided for anti-extremist legislation.

October 10 at The Moscow City Court considered a cassation appeal against the sentencing of members of the Pussy Riot group under Part 2 Art. 213 of the Criminal Code (hooliganism committed by a group of persons by prior agreement on hate motive). As a result of the consideration, the court replaced the sentence for Catherine Samutsevich for two years of probation with two years of probation of the year. The court agreed with the position of the lawyer Samutsevich, who pointed out that the crime accused by her client can not be considered as finished, since Samutsevich was going to accept participated in the action, but was withdrawn from the temple. Sentence to Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina was left unchanged - two years in prison in a colony general mode.

In the middle months after the searches that took place in the Kazan mosque "Al-Ikhlas", it became it is known that a criminal case was initiated against the imam of the mosque Rustem Safin case under Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (organization of the activities of an extremist organization). He is accused of organizing Hizb ut-Tahrir meetings and involving believers in this organization. Recall that in 2009 Safin was sentenced for the same Article to two years of imprisonment conditionally. (We believe that "Hizb ut-Tahrir" was banned without proper reason and this case should be revised.)

On the same days it became known that the director of the Pomor Institute of Indigenous and Indigenous Peoples of the Northern Arctic Federal University, President of the Association of Pomors of the Arkhangelsk Region Ivan Moseev was charged with charge under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (inciting hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity) in connection with the fact that he allegedly left on the website of the information agency "Echo of the North" comment under the nickname "Pomors", insulting ethnic Russians. Moseev believes that the case fabricated against him. We also note that the statement that gave rise to to initiate proceedings, from our point of view, does not deserve attention law enforcement.

Administrative the pursuit

Us it is known about three illegal sentences handed down in October under Art. 20.29 Code of Administrative Offenses (production and distribution of extremist materials). Two of them were issued for distributing prohibited Muslim literature, in particular, the books of Said Nursi.

Third the verdict was handed down in the second half of October in Novocherkassk. Leader "Other Russia" in Rostov-on-Don Sergei Cherepovsky was fined Art. 20.29 and 20.3 (propaganda and public display of Nazi paraphernalia or symbols) of the Code of Administrative Offenses for one and a half thousand rubles. He was accused of distribution of extremist materials and display of Nazi symbols on a personal page in the social network "VKontakte". We consider the verdict Cherepovsky is at least partially unlawful, since the published to them, the video did not fully match the name of the prohibited material, appearing on the Federal List of Extremist Materials, and posted by him on his page, a freeze frame with a swastika, borrowed from the anti-fascist film, has been interpreted as Nazi propaganda without a proper analysis of the context.

Ban materials for extremism

IN In early October, the Central District Court of Tyumen granted the claim of the prosecutor's office and recognized as extremist leaflets "To everyone who works in law enforcement agencies" and Russia in the hands of traitors. Unfortunately, we were unable to read the text of the leaflet "Russia is in the hands of traitors", in fact distribution of which in May 2012, a criminal case was initiated on Part 1 Art. 282 of the Criminal Code in the Oryol region, however, according to the prosecutor's office, it contains some harsh statements criticizing the authorities and the Russian Orthodox Church, which are not social groups protected by the anti-extremist legislation. Both officials and employees are not law enforcement agencies, which were criticized in the leaflet "To everyone who works in power structures", published on the website of the party "Will" by Svetlana Peunova. Meanwhile, on October 16 it became known that the leaflet "Russia is in the hands of traitors" was also banned by Lenin District Court of Barnaul.

At the same time, the Central District Court of Chelyabinsk recognized as extremist the video film "History and Causes of Hizb ut-Tahrir" of the video recording studio "HT Media of Chelyabinsk", posted in social networks. We do not agree that the video contains inflammatory appeals, and we consider its ban unjustified.

In the second half of the month, the Ulyanovsk Regional Court upheld the decision of the Inzensky District Court of the Ulyanovsk region, which recognized the article by Vasily Bokin "Stop the genocide" extremist material. Recall that the article is an open letter from Bokin to the inhabitants of the village of Oskino, not teaching children the Erzya language, it describes possible ways to fight against discrimination. From our point of view, the material is unlawfully recognized as extremist.

At first October Vologda the city court did not recognize the layout as extremist material leaflet generated by the website of Alexei Navalny, allegedly on behalf of party "United Russia" in the framework of the opposition campaign DMP. According to leaflet, presidential candidate V. Putin supported primarily in regions with low housing and communal services tariffs, in particular, North Caucasus. Accordingly, the prosecutor's office saw in the leaflet, in addition to other things, and " kindling enmity and ethnic strife , " but failed to prove it in court.

At the same time, the Sovetsky District Court of Orel refused to recognize the popular city ​​site orlec.ru. The court satisfied the demands of the prosecutor's office only partially, recognizing extremist materials that were previously posted on the site and gave rise to a lawsuit. Recall, "Eagle", positioning itself as a free online encyclopedia, provides an opportunity for everyone wishing to speak anonymously "ironically" about the life of the city. On July 24, 2012, the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Oryol Region initiated criminal case under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code. How it turned out in court that the administration of "Orlets" removed xenophobic materials in a matter of minutes, but during this time representatives law enforcement agencies managed to take screenshots. Thus, the site the court managed to defend, and obviously non-existent materials were prohibited.