The investigation into the case of Maxim Efimov has been resumed

On January 25, 2013, the Investigative Committee for the Republic of Karelia resumed the investigation into the case of the chairman of the Youth Human Rights Group of Karelia (IPG Karelia) Maxim Yefimov, who is charged under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (incitement of hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity on the basis of attitude to religion).

It should be reminded that a criminal case against Yefimov was initiated on the fact of publication in December 2011 on the website of the MPG of a note "Karelia is tired of priests." Since the second half of May 2012 Efimov has been in Estonia. He explains his departure by the fact that he cannot count on the fairness and impartiality of the consideration of the criminal case initiated against him. Yefimov was put on the federal wanted list.

The Investigative Committee appointed an additional, already sixth, linguistic expertise in the case. The investigation set the task for the experts of LLC NPO Expert Soyuz from Nizhny Novgorod to answer the following questions:

"1) Do the materials submitted for the study, namely the article “Karelia is tired of priests”, posted on the website http://right.karelia.ru/, contain calls? What exactly is the author of the article calling for?
2) Does the article submitted for research contain ... statements that are offensive in relation to any religious group?
3) Does the article submitted for research contain ... negative characteristics of a person or group based on religious affiliation?
4) Does the article submitted for research create... a negative image of any religious group? If yes, what means are used for this?
5) Does the article submitted for research contain... negative assessments of any religious group? "

Efimov's lawyer Olga Rybalova appealed to the investigator with a petition to cancel the examination and dismiss the case due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

The lawyer drew attention to the fact that five examinations had already been carried out in the case, none of which gave grounds for identifying corpus delicti in Efimov's actions.

In addition, Rybalova emphasized that some of the questions to the experts were formulated in such a way that even a positive answer to them would not give grounds for accusing Efimov under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code. The lawyer referred to the decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation “On judicial practice in criminal cases on crimes of an extremist orientation”, according to which “actions aimed at inciting hatred or enmity should be understood, in particular, statements substantiating and (or) affirming the need for genocide , mass repressions, deportations, other unlawful acts, including the use of violence, against representatives of any nation, race, adherents of a particular religion and other groups of persons", and "criticism of political organizations, ideological and religious associations , political , ideological or religious beliefs, national or religious customs should not in itself be considered as an act aimed at inciting hatred or enmity" . Creating a negative image of a religious group and its adherents is not a criminal offense.

Recall, from our point of view, the persecution of Efimov is unlawful, since his note, although it is sustained in a rather aggressive tone, does not contain any calls for illegal actions.

Sources

• In Karelia, the case of a blogger who criticized the Russian Orthodox Church has been reopened. 6 expertise assigned // Open news agency. 2013. January 25.