Very extremist cinema

Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow recognized Videos with extremist with performances of the Pussy Riot group. The court was asked by the Prosecutor General’s Office almost a month ago, and the court found that there were grounds for such a decision. During the meeting, the judge quoted the results of a psychological-linguistic examination: “According to the conclusions of experts, videos presented for research, signs of extremism are contained, in particular, they have statements and actions that humiliate various social groups on a religious basis. There are hidden calls for rebellion and disobedience of power, as well as organizing riots ”(quote for“ Interfax-religion ”).

Alexander Starovoitov

Back in September , the prosecutor's office was asked by the State Duma deputy from the LDPR Alexander Starovoitov to check the videos with Pussy Riot performances. He did not like the film by Martin Scorsese “The Last Temptation of Christ”, but Pussy Riot, of course, is stronger. The parliamentarian explained their logic by the fact that his colleagues-uniforms were just offered to ban access to sites where the scandalous film “Innocent Muslims” was posted. In fact, deputy Starovoitov, deputy head of the Transport Committee and mainly dealt with transport security issues in the Duma and did not seem to deal with issues of religious organizations or communications at all.

The deputy initiative, in fact, is quite in the spirit of the rear-offers from the lower house and deputies of opposition factions. Izvestia, for example, write that a group of deputies from the Duma Committee on Science (all three are representatives of the parliamentary opposition) wrote a letter to the leadership of federal television channels, in which the deputies asked television people to abandon the coverage of the “end of the world” as an anti -scientific fact. The case, in general, is good, but greatly looks like, as in the case of Starovoitov’s appeal to the Prosecutor General, on the usual way to increase the mention of the deputy in the media.

However, Starovoitov’s appeal was waiting for another fate, and now the court recognized the video with the Pussy Riot's speech in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior Extremist. Here, probably, the magical power of the Pussy Riot brand worked , nobody, including law enforcement officers and judges who did not leave indifferent in recent months.

“Psychological linguistic examination” here, of course, is a rather shaky reason for the judgment on whether the court decision is true. We often attract quite specific experts, which in the statement “it's time to end this strange economic model” extremism will be seen. But in the texts of Pussy Riot there are a lot of places that can cause the dissatisfaction of believers. “ The head of the KGB, their chief saint/ leads the protesters in a pre -trial detention center near the convoy, is doubtful that the Orthodox really consider the“ head of the KGB ”to the“ main saint ”. And here the article of Criminal Code 282 (“Actions aimed at initiating hatred or enmity, as well as at the humiliation of the dignity of a person or group of persons ... according to the attitude to religion, as well as belonging to any social group) and the law on counteraction of extremist activity (which is also recognized as“ the propaganda of exclusivity, superiority or incompleteness of a person ... on the basis of his religious affiliation or religion ”).

Photo: newsz.in.ua

Critics of anti -extremist legislation even at the time of its adoption warned that vague formulations allow any manifestation of dissent to squeeze out extremist articles. So, in principle, it came out with the Pussy Riot video: the text is muddy, but frankly provocative, and therefore it is possible to consider it “extremist material”. That the court did.

Several facts are amazing here at once.

Firstly, the recognition of an “extremist” video in which several strangely dressed women pretend to play musical instruments. This immediately raises the question of what extremism is in the interpretation of our court.

Secondly, it is surprising for the state, claiming the status of “free and democratic”, the prohibition of videos offensive to power.

And thirdly, it is amazing that the church in the person of its speaker applies to all these oddities.

Let's start with extremism. This concept from a purely liberal vocabulary was in our legislation in 2002, the code adopted the law “On Combating Extremist Activities” No. 114-FZ. For example, in the "Shanghai Declaration" in 2001, extremism is a synonym for racial or social intolerance or separatism. It is almost always associated with an attempt to violent seizure of power or the organization of illegal armed groups.

Almost immediately, it turned out that the courts were ready to interpret the concept of “extremism” as widely as possible and apply this shortcut to anyone who is at least somehow knocked out of the general row. There is a contradiction both in the definition of the term and in its application. The fact is that “extremism” is an exonymic term, that is, it can only be applied to one side to its opponents, and not to itself.

Extremism is thus activity that defends goals with non -constituent methods, which are not consent of the majority. But a wide interpretation, which clearly follows the court decision, means by extremism almost any opposition of power or even its criticism, which makes extremism of a club against opponents of the authorities. This interpretation shows a clear contradiction both to Articles 9 and 10 of the ECPF, and with Articles 2, 28-30 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. These statues guarantee, among other things, freedom of thought, and freedom of organizations, and freedom of criticism of peaceful means.

The law on extremism was subjected to serious and reasonable criticism of the Venetian Commission (European Commission for Democracy through Law), as an unacceptably widely interpreting the concepts of “extremism” and “extremist”. In the light of this, the court decision looks like the next desire to “like and bend” without obvious legal grounds.

Vsevolod Chaplin

The ban on watching rollers and looks at all ridiculous and resembles wild recent attempts to “do it like in China”: to limit the Internet in Russia or make a special “Russian, pure, patriotic and highly moraine rubet”. The desire to prohibitions and restrictions on educating Internet users is an unforgivable naivety. Bannies in uncontrolled media are just advertising. Pink-grain, instead of forgetting himself after a while, will become replicated as a forbidden front. Already now, some musicians post their works on the network with the catchy names “forbidden clip”. It works.

And finally, the reaction of V. Chaplin, as always, is predictably unsuccessful. Instead of random for justice, the speaker of the Russian Orthodox Church rejoices in condemnation. If you translate this into a simple language, then to the question of what is more important, truth or proximity to the authorities, he gave a completely understandable answer: of course, the second. They insulted grandmothers, cursed obscenities and poorly called the patriarch. But cunning in another: “two-legged” was given not for this, but for the call to the Virgin do it yourself, you know what. But let's not about the calls, because it’s not far from extremism.