Translated material
“Unlawful anti-extremism” as a means of restricting the rights of religious minorities
We are republishing an interview with the director of the SOVA center, Alexander Verkhovsky, included in Sergei Ivanenko’s book“Ordinary Anti-Cultism” .
1. Question: The sphere of interests of the Information and Analytical Center “Sova” is the problems of nationalism and xenophobia, the relationship between religion and society, political radicalism, the rootedness of liberal values and respect for human rights in our country. What determines, in your opinion, the nature and development of the relationship between religion and society in Russia? Can this process be called clericalization? Or is another term needed?
Answer: I don’t really like the term “clericalization”, since it historically implies giving the Church powers of one kind or another. We don't have this, or almost none.
What is happening in today's Russia would be more accurately called desecularization, starting from Peter Berger [1] . Contrary to popular beliefs, Berger, when introducing this term, did not literally mean the “return of religion”: in real history, it is very rare that something can exactly return. Bergerian desecularization is a phenomenon of modernized and secularized societies, in which religious organizations, groups and movements master and even create new forms of activity and learn to influence society in new ways. In this sense, the activation of political Islam in the Arab world is not desecularization.
One may wonder whether Russia is a modernized and secularized country in the same sense as the United States and Western European countries. And the answer will be obviously negative - the process of secularization in our country, to put it mildly, proceeded differently and, accordingly, gave a different type of secularity, and the degree of modernization of societies is incomparable.
And yet I use this term because it is closer to Russian reality than “clericalization.”
The Russian Orthodox Church and some other large religious organizations are trying in every possible way to increase their influence in society, relying on the actually growing religiosity (gravitating specifically towards such organizations) and on the more noticeable (at least since the middle of Dmitry Medvedev’s presidential term) state interest in these organizations. This process includes both the build-up of financial and administrative resources and the “expansion” of religiously motivated concepts and language into the public sphere.
The secularized part of society resists. This process will undoubtedly continue, so in the short term we can only expect an intensification of the confrontation. But over time, as reflection develops on both sides and, importantly, in that part of society that is not involved in the confrontation, the dynamics will inevitably change.
Of course, this is a very general picture, since in fact there are not two “sides” here.
2. Question: What consequences for the observance of the rights of believers and non-believers can be expected in the foreseeable future: 1) the secular nature of the state, the equality of religious organizations before the law and the principles of freedom of conscience will remain; 2) these principles will be deformed, one or more religious associations will receive additional preferences, and religious minorities will be limited in their rights.
Answer: Individual freedom of conscience in Russia is practically not subject to restrictions, with the deduction of some exceptions such as those discussed below and cases of “excesses on the ground.” What is problematic is precisely the secularity of the state and the principle of equality before the law in relation to religious organizations and informal associations (movements), insofar as this principle is applicable to them.
Under President D. Medvedev, the concept of “traditional religions” moved from official rhetoric to the sphere of rule-making. For the first time, they received official preferences in acts that introduced a block of “spiritual and moral education” in school and the position of military chaplains in the army. Of course, it is still too early to talk about Russia’s transition to a regime of legal division of religions into privileged and others, but the concept of “traditional religions” that was established ten years ago is gravitating toward institutionalization.
During the second presidential term of V.V. Putin (and already from the middle of the first), his government did not need support from the main religious organizations, like any others, did not seek to receive it and, accordingly, could not provide this support with any practical measures. But since then, the country’s political leadership - for various reasons - has been establishing relations with support groups in society, which, in relation to religious organizations, implies a smooth transition from a policy of optional rhetoric about something “spiritual” to the formalization of real privileges.
This process is meeting the increasing activity of the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church and some other religious organizations. By the way, the list of such most active organizations does not coincide with the list of organizations of “traditional religions” included in the Interreligious Council of Russia, which makes the real structure of relations between the authorities and religious organizations not so predictable.
But no matter what religious associations the authorities come close to, this inevitably entails certain consequences.
Firstly, some form of discrimination against some other religious movements and groups (including within the same confessions) is inevitable. The forms and methods of such discrimination seem to be more often determined by state or even private bureaucratic interests, rather than by the preferences of the privileged organizations themselves.
Secondly, religious associations naturally promote their ideas about a variety of social problems. And the authorities are increasingly meeting them halfway, which means, as I already said, the desecularization of society, even if it is going slowly and not at all systematically.
3. Question: One of the constant areas of monitoring conducted by SOVA is manifestations of “illegal anti-extremism.” To what extent does this phenomenon “poison the life” of law-abiding religious associations? How to draw a “watershed” in the religious sphere: what can be considered as a fight against real extremism, and what is clearly “illegal anti-extremism”? Why are Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, and some movements of Islam more often than others becoming the target of wrongful accusations of extremism?
Answer: The concept of “extremism” is a political science one, and its direct implementation into law is problematic, to say the least. Russia, which began this operation ten years ago, is unique in this regard in the European space, and this alone should give pause. Indeed, the implementation led to a clear destruction of the law: the principle of legal certainty was greatly violated. Now no one can definitely say what is “extremism” and what is not. After all, manifestations of religious intolerance, described in the law as “extremist,” actually range from direct incitement to terrorism to assertion of the superiority of one’s faith over others.
There are ideas established by the European Convention on Human Rights and explained by the European Court of Human Rights about the extent to which freedom of expression, including those related to religion, should be limited. These ideas were also supported by the Russian Supreme Court in 2011, which established that criticism of religious, political and other views, associations and customs is not a crime (in the sense of Article 282 of the Criminal Code). Alas, the practice of law enforcement is too far from these European ideas.
There are many cases where the only, in fact, accusation was precisely the accusation of asserting the truth of one’s religious ideas in comparison with others. In its most systematic form, this repressive approach is manifested in the “anti-extremist” persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses and followers of Said Nursi [2] .
Of course, the question immediately arises: why do unlawful anti-extremist prosecutions affect some groups and not others? Are there any systemic reasons behind this or are there some particular considerations at work? The answers to these questions can be given more analytically than factually, since the motivation of the initiators of certain persecutions is rarely manifested in explicit form.
The most important systemic reason, in my opinion, lies in the inability not only of authorities or law enforcement agencies, but also of the public as a whole, to distinguish serious threats from frivolous ones, as well as the inability to even construct a satisfactory criterion for such a distinction.
Anti-extremist legislation was not born out of nowhere; its problem is not the groundlessness of the idea, but the inadequacy of the proposed legal instruments.
There is a very real threat of terrorist and other violent actions motivated by religious and political considerations. There is no need to give examples. There is a speculative, but also not devoid of realism, threat of escalation of tension in a particular region, based largely on religious and political confrontation.
There is a threat of attacks on people and property (including places of worship) motivated by religious or religio-political hatred; this threat is also quite real, and while there are very few attacks on strictly religious grounds outside the North Caucasus (as opposed to attacks motivated by ethnic hatred), there are relatively many acts of religiously (or anti-religiously) motivated vandalism.
There is a threat, noticeable if not to everyone, then to many, of insulting the religious feelings of certain people and sometimes even quite large groups of people. Usually the source of such insults is publications in the media, although, of course, the variety of offensive actions is very large.
Finally, I have to mention a threat that I myself consider mythological, but many citizens perceive as real - a threat to collective identity or, as is sometimes pompously expressed, “spiritual security.” Behind the sometimes somewhat fantastic ideological constructs associated with this concept, one can see the very real discomfort of some of our citizens associated with rapid changes, including those affecting religious life.
All these threats should be countered by appropriate protection mechanisms that are adequate to their nature and degree of danger. But anti-extremist legislation offers one answer to everything. Apparently many people still believe in the effectiveness of “simple answers.” And these people clearly do not believe in any regulatory mechanisms other than repressive ones.
Criminal prosecution and brutality of the special services are appropriate when we are talking about groups of a terrorist nature and generally oriented towards violence, but even in this case the necessary legal guarantees must be observed (and in this, I emphasize, we are all interested, and not just the real, future or suspected terrorists).
But the same methods often do not help prevent the escalation of a larger conflict, and even vice versa.
And certainly they are not only useless, but also downright harmful when we talk about “insulting feelings,” since such things as freedom of expression and freedom of conscience, tolerance and dialogue, history and modernity of interreligious relations, etc. are affected. , and all these matters are not for the prosecutor, not for the policeman, they can do more harm than help.
The position of our Center, which, alas, runs counter to current trends in lawmaking, is that it is necessary to decriminalize verbal acts such as “insult” and “humiliation” (as an ordinary insult was decriminalized back in 2011) in order to focus the attention of law enforcement agencies on really dangerous incitement activities (not not to mention actual violent actions) and free the public discussion itself, which in one way or another concerns religion, from the figure of the prosecutor hanging over it.
The amazing faith of our citizens in the possibility of using prosecutorial methods to regulate tolerance is confirmed by the almost unanimous acceptance of such an element of anti-extremist legislation as the Federal List of Extremist Materials, at least among those involved in religious and public polemics.
Of course, the operation of this mechanism is almost universally criticized, but in itself it is considered acceptable.
Meanwhile, the mechanism for banning materials as extremist, unique in the space of modern Europe (in a geographical sense), is not only fraught with numerous abuses, but also practically does not limit the circulation of xenophobic and other socially dangerous materials. A sufficient reason for the inability of this mechanism is that the subject of the ban cannot be described precisely enough, so even minor changes made to the text (video or song) make it a different material to which the ban no longer applies. In fact, this is why countries that are serious about legal regulation do not use this tool.
As long as there is a demand on the part of society, even if not explicitly formulated, for a predominantly repressive regulation of the problem of intolerance, including religious, it is difficult to expect from the state, already inclined to the same approach, that it will not act excessively repressive. The arbitrariness of individual officials in some places significantly aggravates this situation, but the fundamental reason is still not in these individual officials.
However, there are also reasons of a more private nature that cause repression against certain groups or certain types of public statements.
For example, even before the Pussy Riot case, in 2011, two sentences were passed under Article 282 of the Criminal Code, in which the convicts were punished for gross attacks against believers in general, Orthodox Christians in particular, and the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church in particular. Moreover, the public response to the statements themselves was close to zero. Previously, there were no such verdicts (the cases about exhibitions in the Sakharov Museum are still of a slightly different type), so these cases cannot be attributed only to the need of law enforcement officers to fill out “anti-extremist” statistics with something. They cannot be explained by the above-mentioned public desire for repressive solutions to problems: simply because in these cases, in one of them, for sure, there was no problem at all. It remains to be assumed that the matter is the strengthened position of the Russian Orthodox Church in the elite status market, so that some officials already consider it necessary and possible to conduct criminal cases simply for rudeness towards the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church, just as there are criminal cases for rudeness against high-ranking officials.
The persecution of the extremely peaceful followers of Said Nursi is most likely due to the widespread perception that they in general and their main current authority Fethullah Gülen [3] are something of a secret society within Islam, closely associated with the Turkish authorities (and, sometimes add - USA). Thus, they can be suspected as secret promoters of “pan-Turkism” - another mythological enemy of Russian sovereignty.
Everything that is in one way or another, real or supposedly, connected with Gülen has long been subject to bans. Thus, they gradually reached the point of banning the non-existent organization “Nurcular” by the Supreme Court [4] : the word itself denotes followers of Nursi, but no one saw traces of the organization (and if someone did, they did not publish their observations, and the decision of the Supreme Court also does not shed light to this riddle).
This is the apotheosis of conspiracy thinking. It’s just that in relation to the Elders of Zion conspiracy, everyone already understands that this is something like a threat from the Martians, and in the case of Nurcular, the idea of the conspiracy can still be “sold”, taking advantage of everyone’s fears of the militant currents of political Islam and the fact that Few people understand these trends.
True, there are cases when the specific reason for the repressive campaign is not visible. This is the case of Jehovah's Witnesses. Of course, they are a typical unpopular minority. But they have almost always been like this, and it is not clear what changed in 2009, when the campaign against them began. Why? There is no longer any need to talk about rapid expansion (that is, the hypothetical motive of competition with large religious associations enjoying the patronage of the authorities is not visible, unlike the situation of many Muslim groups), the Witnesses do not participate in public debate on sensitive issues, something “subversive” "or violence, of course, are not involved.
4. Question: To what extent does Russian legislation on countering extremism comply with the norms of international law, and even with the requirements of common sense?
Answer: The norms of international law in the field of protection of public security and restrictions on freedom of expression are not formulated so clearly, and the language of the Law “On Combating Extremist Activities” is also very vague, so we cannot talk about direct contradiction.
Here is a contradiction with common sense, and I briefly said about it above.
But from a legal point of view, our legislation seriously encroach on two not strictly formulated, but very important legal criterion - proportionality and certainty.
The fact that many elements of the law violate the principle of legal certainty, I also said. The most famous example is the extremely slurred concept of a “social group”. But the principle of proportionality is also violated: the law immediately covers many heterogeneous acts and involves a wide selection of punishments or preventive measures (usually warnings), but does not clarify what to apply for. This is not unconditionally cruel punishment. The verdict to the Pussy Riot participants is a famous example, but the ban on the Taganrog organization of the same Jehovah's Witnesses - religious brochures, even assuming that these brochures are really so intolerant as the court decided. Indeed, now the Taganrog witnesses simply for the fact of the preaching of their faith may be accused of a criminal offense - the continuation of the prohibited organization [5] .
5. Question: how legally correct law enforcement practice is associated with the recognition of certain religious publications and extremist texts?
Answer: I have already said that I think the very idea of a judicial ban on texts is meaningless, even if we are talking about really harmful and dangerous texts. Yes, there are texts whose systematic distribution in any democratic country would be considered a crime. These are, for example, calls for armed jihad [6] not in abstract theory, but in today's Russian reality. In this case, the author and/or the distributor can be convicted of a crime under one or more of articles (280, 282 and 205.2) of the Criminal Code, but the prohibition of the text itself (for example, the sermons of Said Buryatsky [7] ) does not make sense.
Consider this issue, distracted from considerations of expediency and even legal certainty. Then in the secular state it should be recognized that the religious nature of the text does not create either the text or its author of any immunity (as well as it is not an aggravating circumstance). But the problem of interpretation arises.
Actually, this problem arises in relation to any text. The question is how the text is interpreted by its target audience and how the investigation and the court should evaluate it.
Compare, for example, the phrase “I did not come to bring the world, but the sword” [8] (the Gospel of Matthew 10:34) and the slogan “War in your city. Arm yourself! " (approximately such slogans pronounced and wrote the ultra -right in Moscow in the summer of 2011). And yet, for the completeness of comparison, take the phrase from the song - "Let there be war!" (The song "War" of the Punk group "Survival Instructions", popular in the appropriate environment 20 years ago).
Now, according to prevailing practice, the investigation and the court attract a variety of experts to evaluate texts. These experts, very different in the specialty and in the level of humanitarian training, try to evaluate the texts or fragments presented by them, based, as a rule, on some of their own ideas about how this or that text should be read. They almost never take into account the specifics of the audience, the conceptual series in which the text is formed is often ignored. With this approach, all three phrases given above will turn out to be extremist.
Divate investigators and/or experts will even be able to find cases when people, guided by these or similar phrases, really resorted to violence: in the first case, the crusades will be remembered, in the second - many racist crimes in the capital, in the third ... well, if they show erudition, They will recall the riots, made by Pan, at the presentation of the Russian Breakthrough project in Moscow at the end of 1993.
But all this will have nothing to do with a real analysis of texts in relation to their real audience. On the one hand, punks are sometimes prone to violence, but the song “War” is not about this at all (as, say, the much better known Viktor Tsoi song). On the other hand, far -right slogans are heated by racist emotions and increase the likelihood of appropriate crimes. Well, but no one should explain anything about militant Christianity to anyone ... But no, it is necessary: they recognized the extremist slogan “Orthodoxy or death!” [9] .
In fact, in the vast majority of “extremist” cases, examination is not needed at all: the meaning of texts is quite transparent and does not need some kind of academic analysis. But in relation to the texts of religious content, this is not so: the language of these texts is so specific and poorly understandable outside the corresponding environment that law enforcement officers simply need the services of a “translator”. Only such a translator should not be a linguist, not a socio-psychologist, etc., but precisely the religious scholar, and specializing in this religion.
Now, alas, this is extremely rare.
The usual practice is primitive: in the framework of some business, a large pack of various literature is immediately removed and it is passed on to some local expert. He, to the extent of understanding, distinguishes in a pack “extremist” part, while most often the procedural law is rudely violated, that is, the expert makes a judgment on legal issues of the type, “whether it excites the text of enmity and to whom”, but the expert cannot be asked about this and he should be asked You can’t answer this. Then the conclusions of the examination almost literally turn into a lawsuit or indictment, and from there - to the court decision. The results, as you know, are more and more impressive; Recently, even the composition of al-Gazali [10] eight hundred years ago was banned.
In essence, this practice is below all criticism.
6. Question: is it advisable, in your opinion, to amend the anti -ecstromist legislation, taking into account the specific features of the activities of religious associations and the content of religious literature? For example, to prohibit the “Search of Extremism” in the sacred books of world religions? To make clarification that the recognition of the truth is not a sign of extremism only one religion?
Answer: Not only the assertion of the truth of its religion, but also the statement of the pure falsity, harmfulness and stupidity of everyone else is not a crime. As I said, this was clearly ruled by the European Court of Human Rights, and our Supreme Court also thinks.
But it is impossible to exclude sacred books from the sphere of suspects in extremism directly in the law. Russia is a secular state, in which, according to the Constitution, all religious associations are equal before the law, and which therefore cannot determine in the law, which books are sacred and which are not, which religions are world and which can be considered a circle of interests. Yes, this is not necessary: if you take into account the context of using certain texts, then the problem will not arise. A person can be convicted of incitement to a terrorist attack using quotes from the Qur'an, but this does not make the Koran extremist.
The possibility of changing the interpretation of texts over time is also not a specific feature of religions. The same thing happens with secular ideologies, for example, with Marxism. And the fact that some historically significant texts can be used critically and should not be excluded as a subject of study, it is time to simply recognize in the general plan, and not try to invent something special. Practice, we note, still goes in this direction. Here Mine Kampf is prohibited, but is available in libraries, not to mention the Internet. If someone will replicate it with propaganda intent, this will be a crime. And if someone is studying it, this will be another dissertation.
7. Question: Is the connection between anti -cultist myths and “unlawful anti -ecstromism” can be traced? So, for example, were there real legal grounds for the prosecutor's office of Tomsk to suspect the Krishnas and their religious literature in extremism? Or the initiators of the process on the recognition of the Bhagavad-Gita as it are guided by the desire to “prohibit the totalitarian sect”, that is, acted on the basis of anti-cultural ideas about Krishnas?
Answer: Of course, there is a connection. As I said, neither the state nor society know how to distinguish between different threats. The activities of new or relatively new religions are potentially fraught with conflicts, as, in fact, any activation of religious life, and, like any activation in general. In many ways, this, I think, keeps wide support of anti -cultist ideas even among those who are not bred confessional and does not believe in the word for any bikes about “totalitarian sects”.
The conflict and even its threat are understood as “extremism”, hence the tendency to use anti -extremist tools against new religious movements and other religious opponents. It is rather surprised that this trend was implemented with a great delay after the adoption of the law “On Combating Extremist Activities”.
The ability to subtract the apology of violence, etc. In “Bhagavad-gita” or in the comments of Swami Prabhupada is predetermined by the “mechanical” reading of the religious text described above. But for the mechanism to work, you need a motive. And in this case, this motive was clearly anti -cultist.
8. Question: have you had to communicate or polemize with supporters of anti -culturalism? What are the origins of their rejection of the principles of freedom of conscience and other religions? Is it possible to regard anti -cultism as a specific form of xenophobia?
Answer: I do not have much experience in such communication. The motives of people are very different. For some, anti-cultism is a derivative of their religious orthodoxy. For some, he is motivated by concern for state security in the "spiritual security" version. Someone is really concerned about the drama of people “involved in the sect”, or their relatives, simply not realizing that he was not faced with the specifics of a particular “sect”, but with a phenomenon, characteristic, on the one hand, for active religiosity In general, on the other hand, for developing subcultures.
All these motives, one way or another, suggest a certain prejudice, which is the essence of xenophobia. Anti -cultism is one of its varieties. Alas, our society is generally very intolent, and this is only one of many manifestations of a common phenomenon. Although, of course, one should not forget about the specific reasons.
But with this form of xenophobia, as well as with others, only in the most extreme cases it is worth fighting by direct prohibitions and, moreover, by criminalization15. Defenders of religious minorities should keep in mind that guarantees of freedom of speech also apply to their opponents. Simply put, to declare publicly that the same Krishnaism is pseudo -Dorligi, a totalitarian sect, etc. - Stupid and harmful, but not prohibited. The concepts of “harmful” and “prohibited” may coincide only in a totalitarian society.
[1] Peter Ludwig Berger (German. Peter Ludwig Berger; Born in 1929)-Austrian Lutheran theologian and sociologist living in the USA, representative of the socio-constructivist direction in sociology. It is known for its work "Social construction of reality. A treatise on the sociology of knowledge ”(New York, 1966).
[2] Badiuzaman Said Nursi (tour. Bediüzaman Said Nursî 1876 - 1960) - Turkish Islamic Theologian and Kurdish scientist, interpreter (mufasser) of the Koran. Possessing a phenomenal memory, at an early age, Said Nursi received a prefix to the name Badiuzanaman (marvelous), which was received only by the most distinguished Islamic scientists. It is one of the most revered Islamic figures in Turkey and in the Turkic world. In 2007, the Koptevsky court of Moscow recognized some Russian translations of the books of S. Nursi Extremist.
[3] Muhammad Fethullah Gulen (tour. Muhammed Fethullah Gülen, born in 1941) is a Turkish thinker, the author of more than 60 books about Islam, recognized in 2008 by the American magazine Forin Polysi and the British Prospekt, leading the intellectual of the world.
[4] By a decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of April 10, 2008, the activities of the Nurjular organization were banned in Russia.
[5] On August 5, 2011, the investigative part of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Southern Federal District in Taganrog opened a criminal case against Jehovah's Witnesses under Part 1 of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Organization of the activities of an extremist organization. May 31, 2012, decisions were made to attract 17 people as accused in the case. Four are accused under part 1 of article 282.2 of the Criminal Code (organization of extremist organization), the rest - under Part 2 of Article 2 . 282.2 of the Criminal Code (participation in an extremist organization). Extremist Rostov Regional Court.
[6] Jihad (from arab - “effort”) is a concept in Islam, meaning zeal on the path of Allah. Some Islamic theologians divide jihad into a large (spiritual struggle) and small (Gazavat - armed struggle).
[7] Said Buryatsky (birth name Alexander Alexandrovich Tikhomirov, 1982 - 2010) - participant in terrorist groups, an Islamic preacher and one of the ideologists of the North Caucasian armed underground.
[8] This is an excerpt from the instructions of Jesus Christ the twelve apostles: “Do not think that I came to bring peace to Earth; I did not come to bring the world, but the sword, for I came to share a man with his father and daughter with her mother, and a daughter -in -law with her mother -in -law. And enemies to man - his home. Who loves a father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; And who loves a son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. The deceased soul will lose her; And his soul who has lost her sake will save her ”(the Gospel of Matthew 10: 34-39).
[9] "Orthodoxy or death!" - The slogan popular among radical groups in the Orthodox Church. The motto "Orthodoxy or death!" Since the 1970s, the Axfigmen, the monks of which are refused to remember the ruling bishop of the Holy Mount Athos-the Patriarch of Constantinople, and also have canonical communication with other monasteries of Mount Athos, have been drawn in Greek. The slogan is a paraphrase of the slogan of the Greek revolution of 1821: "Freedom or death!" In the Russian Federation, the motto is "Orthodoxy or death!" It was recognized as extremist and is included in the federal list of extremist materials under number 865 by decision of the Cheremushkinsky district court of the city of Moscow, issued on December 21, 2010.
[10] Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn-Muhammad al-Gazali (1058-1111)-Islamic theologian and philosopher of Persian origin. One of the most authoritative teachers is one of the founders of Sufism. By the decision of the Sol-Iletsky District Court of May 28, 2012, the recognition of the extremist religious works was recognized as an extremist book: Abu Hamid al-Gazali “Instructions to the rulers”, the publishing house “Ansar”, Moscow, 2008-334 pages.
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