Unlawful anti-extremism in November 2012

We are publishing a review of the main and most significant events in the field of unlawful application of anti-extremist legislation in Russia in November 2012.

Rulemaking

In mid-November, a law came into force providing for the revision of a number of provisions of articles of the Criminal Code on espionage and high treason, as well as the introduction of Art. 283.1 on illegal receipt of information constituting a state secret. Let us remind you that the corresponding bill caused a mixed reaction from the public and was adopted with some changes; you can read more about this here .

In the second half of the month, the State Duma adopted in the second reading the bill “On Amendments to Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code” (propaganda and public display of Nazi paraphernalia or symbols), which provides for the introduction of a fine also for public display of paraphernalia or symbols of extremist organizations and an increase in the fine for offenses under this article. We oppose this bill (read more here ). To speak about a possible tightening and expansion of the article, from our point of view, should be after changing its wording in such a way that public demonstration without the purpose of propaganda would not be punishable.

Criminal prosecution

In November, the fight against the radical Islamic party Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami suddenly intensified. In Moscow, in a case initiated in October under Part 1 of Art. 282.2 (organizing the activities of an extremist organization), 9 people were charged. According to law enforcement agencies, five of the accused are the direct leaders of the Russian and Moscow cells of Hizb ut-Tahrir. At the beginning of the month, large-scale searches were carried out in the city in connection with the same case, about 40 people were detained, 30 of them were later released. In November, a criminal case was opened in Nizhny Novgorod against three people under Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code (organizing the activities of an extremist organization). Charges have also been brought against the defendants in the Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod cases under Art. 222 of the Criminal Code (illegal acquisition, transfer, storage of weapons, ammunition and explosives). In early November, searches of suspects in collaboration with Hizb ut-Tahrir took place in Bashkortostan, as a result of which ten people were detained; It is still unknown under what article the criminal case was brought against them. Let us remind you that we regard the ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir in Russia as unlawful, since the organization was banned as a terrorist organization, although it is well known to not resort to violence. Accordingly, the weapons-related charges are somewhat puzzling.

In mid-November, hearings on the murder of Yuri Budanov began in the Moscow City Court. Yusup Temerkhanov was charged under paragraph "l" of Part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (murder motivated by hatred and enmity against a social group) and Part 1 of Art. 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (illegal arms trafficking). Temerkhanov is accused of murder motivated by hatred against the social group “servicemen of the Russian army.” We do not agree with the formulation of the motive for the crime. From our point of view, military personnel are not among the vulnerable social groups subject to protection through anti-extremist legislation. In addition, we advocate the exclusion of the concept of “social group” from anti-extremist articles, since the vagueness of this term leads to abuses in law enforcement.

At the end of the month it became known that a criminal case had been opened in Moscow under Art. 280 of the Criminal Code (public calls for extremist activities) regarding the events of May 6, 2012 in Moscow during the “March of Millions”. So far, the case has been opened against unidentified persons. As far as we know, at the “March of Millions” there were no calls for extremist activities within the meaning of the relevant law; the slogans of the march participants had a predominantly political meaning and were not radical.

In St. Petersburg in November, the case of the Other Russia activists, who are accused under Part 2 of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code (participation in the activities of a prohibited organization). At the beginning of the month, the Vyborg District Court of St. Petersburg stopped the prosecution of another defendant in the case due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, and thus, seven people remained in the dock in the “case of 12.” The prosecutor demands a fine of 250 thousand rubles for three of them and 180 thousand for four. We would like to remind you that we consider the ban on the National Bolshevik Party, of which the defendants in the case are accused of continuing its activities, to be unlawful, as well as the fact that prosecution under Art. 282.2 is subject to people speaking on behalf of the “Other Russia” movement, which has not been banned.

Administrative prosecution

In November, we became aware of 6 cases of unlawful imposition of fines under Art. 20.29 Code of Administrative Offenses (production and distribution of extremist materials). In the Tyumen region, a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses community was fined. A librarian suffered for issuing banned books to readers in Novokuznetsk, and a library director in Smolensk. Let us recall that the law on library science obliges librarians to issue books to readers from the collections and does not give them the right to remove any books from the collections. In Moscow and Samara, bookstore owners were fined for distributing extremist literature, and while books in the Moscow store were confiscated, both illegally and justifiably banned, the Samara store was fined only because books that were part of the library were found in it of 68 religious Muslim works wrongfully prohibited by a court decision in Orenburg.

Banning materials for extremism

At the end of November, the Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow declared a video filmed following an action by the punk group Pussy Riot in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, as well as three other videos of the group, to be extremist. The court agreed with the opinion of experts who found in the videos “images aimed at inciting hatred or enmity, a hidden call for rebellion and disobedience to authority, holding actions to seize areas, a call to work with law enforcement agencies to attract employees to their side.” Let us note that the examination was carried out with flagrant violations: the experts were asked legal questions within the competence of the prosecutor and the court.

At the end of November 2012, it became known that the prosecutor’s office of Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod region, filed a lawsuit in the city court to recognize the book “International Tribunal for Chechnya” as extremist material. This fundamental study is devoted to the problem of massive violations of international humanitarian law and fundamental human rights committed by both sides of the conflict in Chechnya, and the prospects for bringing to justice, in particular, representatives of the Russian high command and executive power. A significant part of the sources used by the authors were materials from the European Court of Human Rights. An attempt to ban the monograph is fraught, according to human rights activists, with an international scandal.

Other materials wrongfully banned in November included an article and a leaflet directed against law enforcement officers, an Internet site apparently created by supporters of the banned Tablighi Jamaat movement, two opposition Ingush sites, and the No. 1 newspaper Cossack Rus.

In November, from the next update of the Federal List of Extremist Materials, it became known that in July the Leninsky District Court of Orenburg, whose decision to recognize 68 Muslim religious works as extremist is now being reviewed by the cassation court, banned another 32 books, apparently seized during a search to the cause of local neo-Nazis. Of these books, four were banned, from our point of view, unlawfully. This is the “Veles Book” - a famous collection of fictional traditions, prayers and legends supposedly reflecting the history of the Eastern Slavs in the 7th-9th centuries, two articles by the American revisionist historian Mark Weber, an article by Sergei Belikov “Skinhead Culture” - an abbreviated version of a guide to identifying skinheads for law enforcement officials, as well as the book by the American Bill Buford “The English Disease” - a journalistic investigation into the nature of violence in the European fan community in the 80-90s (for the degree of meaningfulness of the decision as a whole, see here ).