Bashkortostan: Criminal case for statements on Facebook

On February 1, 2013, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Bashkortostan announced the initiation of a criminal case 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) in relation to a 46-year-old resident of Ufa, a teacher of history and social studies at one of the lyceums in Guzalia Galimova. According to investigators, on October 28, 2012, a local resident wrote a message in the public domain on the Internet on the Facebook social network, in which she spoke rather sharply about the behavior of Russian women in Turkish resorts. The experts saw in the text " negative information about representatives of the Russian nationality, which creates in the reader sharply negative psychological attitudes towards another person or group of people, aimed at inciting hatred and enmity. The expressions in the text are insulting, humiliating the honor and dignity of a person, express a negative assessment specific nationality .

The teacher has already resigned from the Lyceum of her own free will.

From our point of view, the criminal case was initiated illegally. The suspect is not charged with any aggressive appeals, negative assessment or dissemination of negative information are not included in Art. 282 of the Criminal Code, and as for the humiliation of dignity, we believe that it should be removed from the Criminal Code as an offense of minor gravity.

Sources

• In the Republic of Bashkortostan, a local resident is suspected of extremism // Official website of the RF IC for the Republic of Bashkortostan. 2013. February 1.
• Ufa teacher suspected of extremism over Facebook post // Ufa1.ru. 2013. February 1.