Unlawful anti-extremism in January 2013

We publish review of the main and most significant developments in the field of illegal application of anti-extremist legislation in Russia in January 2013. Rulemaking

At the end of January, the Government of the Russian Federation gave an official negative opinion on the bill "On amendments to The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and other legislative acts of the Russian Federation in order to counter insulting the religious feelings of citizens, desecration of objects and objects religious veneration, places of religious rites and ceremonies", better known as "blasphemy law". The recall states that the existing norms The criminal code on hooliganism and vandalism is enough to punish desecration religious objects, we can only talk about supplementing these norms with qualifying signs and tougher penalties for such acts. The government also drew the attention of the deputies to the fact that in the The draft law contains concepts that are not defined in the Russian legislation. Probably in position government was influenced by the public controversy that unfolded around the bill, including the negative opinion of the Council for the Rights person under the President (the Council is finalizing its own proposals in this area).

January 29, 2013 on the website of the Ministry of Justice Russian Federation published a draft law on amendments to the law "On non-profit organizations". The Ministry of Justice proposes to extend to all NGOs the procedure for conducting unscheduled inspections, adopted in relation to NCOs registered as "foreign agents". This involves unscheduled inspections based on requests and statements of citizens or legal entities about the presence of signs of extremism in activities of NGOs. It should be noted that unscheduled inspections of NPOs do not bring noticeable results, since documentation checks and similar activities are hardly whether they allow revealing "facts of extremism", but once again make it difficult the work of organizations that do not have any extremist activities relationship.

At the end of January, it became known about the experiment on regulation of Internet access, which was supposed to be held in Kostroma regions from February to April 2013 Safer Internet League (LBI) in collaboration with local providers. The latter had to conclude with new contracts by users, according to which, by default, users access would only be granted to sites included in the "white paper" compiled by the LBI list", numbering about 500 thousand sites. The user could get access to the Internet in full, only by submitting an application to the provider. The implementation of this project would mean the introduction of the most severe and unprecedented censorship in the network in one of the Russian regions. However Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications Nikolai Nikiforov said that the initiative LBI is not coordinated with the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and the ministry does not support this idea. Nikiforov recalled that "in our country, a single and indivisible information space "in which filtering is carried out Roskomnadzor. "If operators introduce restrictions that do not provided by law, they violate the rights of subscribers" .

In mid-January, deputies of the Legislative Assemblies of St. Petersburg adopted in the first reading a bill submitted by a well-known deputy Vitaly Milonov, allowing the city government to order examination of information products. According to this bill, the city the government gets the right to conclude contracts for the examination of information products, distributed within St. Petersburg, on the basis of the appeal of the Legislative Assembly, Office of the Commissioner for Children's Rights or on their own initiative. Expert opinions, apparently, are planned to be transferred to the city law enforcement agencies. According to Milonov, the bill was sent before just to fight against representatives of "non-traditional religions" - Scientologists and Jehovah's Witnesses. In addition to the obviously unconstitutional goal of fighting certain religious movements, such as measures would simply be an unjustified waste of city funds, since the authorities responsible for control over information (including ordering the examination of materials), already exist in abundance.

Civil Litigation

Yurginsky city court of the Kemerovo region with unaccustomed integrity rejected the claims of the prosecutor's office against the local group of Witnesses Jehovah. The prosecutor's office argued that the activities of the latter, among other things, "are aimed on undermining the security of the state, inciting social, racial and religious hatred, causes hostility to the way of life, culture of citizens, undermines the foundations of the national security of the Russian Federation" . On December 27, 2012 (we became aware of this in January), the court refused prosecutor's office, since the distribution of prohibited materials and the initiation of hate has not been proven. The court took note of the ruling Commissioner for Human Rights and referred to a 2011 Supreme Court ruling, according to to whom "criticism political organizations, ideological and religious associations, political, ideological or religious beliefs, national or religious practices should not in itself be regarded as an act, intended to incite hatred or enmity" . Prosecutor's office intends to appeal this ruling.

Criminal prosecution

Prosecution continues for participation in organizations that were banned as extremist as a result of judicial errors.

In the city of Davlekanovo in Bashkortostan, the court the criminal case was transferred under parts 1 and 2 of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (organization and participation in the activities of an extremist organization, respectively) in relation to previously convicted (probably on similar charges) Ural Delmukhametov and Rinat Zarbeev. They are accused of organizing a Hizb ut-Tahrir cell.

Meanwhile, in the second half of the month in Moscow Aigun Suleymanov was released from arrest pending trial, who is also accused in the creation of the Hizb ut-Tahrir cell by Part 1 Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code. The Meshchansky District Court made an unprecedented decision to release of a person suspected of involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir, contrary to the requirements of the FSB and the prosecutor's office.

Launched in Novosibirsk in January trial in the case against imams Ilkhom Merazhov and Kamil Odilov, who are accused of organizing the activities of the cell banned organization "Nurcular" under Part 1 of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code. We We believe that, unlike the adherents of Hizb ut-Tahrir, followers of Said Nursi do not give any grounds for suspicion of extremist activity at all.

At the end of January, the Investigative Committee for the Republic Karelia resumed investigation into the case of the chairman of the Youth Human Rights group of Karelia (IPG of Karelia) Maxim Efimov under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (inciting hatred or enmity, as well as the humiliation of human dignity on the basis of relation to religion). Recall that a criminal case against Efimov was initiated upon the publication in December 2011 on the IPY website of the note "Karelia tired of the priests. "The persecution of Efimov is unlawful, since his tiny note, although it is sustained in a rather aggressive tone, does not contain any calls for illegal actions. From the second half of May 2012 Efimov is in Estonia, he is put on the federal wanted list. SC appointed in the case additional, already the sixth, linguistic expertise, the previous five did not give grounds for identifying corpus delicti in Efimov's actions. Wherein some of the questions to be answered by the experts are formulated the consequence is incorrect, since it relates exclusively to the competence of the court.

Not to mention another a case of clearly excessive application of Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code. At the end of January, Zamoskvoretsky Moscow court sentenced one of the leaders of the National Democratic Party Konstantin Krylov to 120 hours of compulsory work for his performance at rally "Stop feeding the Caucasus" in October 2011. Extremely Krylov's offensive remarks about "Caucasians" formally fall under composition of Art. 282 (degradation on a national basis), but we believe that this part of the article should be removed from the Criminal Code. Krylov not pleaded guilty and intends to challenge the verdict.

In the middle of the month, the Moscow prosecutor's office approved the indictment. opinion on the case of a deputy of the Sloboda District Duma of the Kirov Region and owner of the National Reserve Corporation Alexander Lebedev. Lebedev accused under paragraph b. Part 1 Art. 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (hooliganism based on political hatred) and paragraphs. a, b h. 2 tbsp. 116 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (beating from hooligan motives and motivated by political hatred). Recall that the case against Lebedev was initiated in October 2011 on the fact of beating businessman Sergei Polonsky live on the program "NTVshniki" in September 2011. We believe that the qualification of this incident as extremist - a step dictated not by legal, but by populist considerations.

Administrative persecution

At the end of January, Anastasia Konovalova, who at the end of 2012 found guilty under part 1 of Art. 20.3 Administrative Code (public demonstration of Nazi paraphernalia or symbols, similar to the Nazi to the point of confusion) and sentenced to a fine of 500 rubles, successfully challenged the verdict. The city court of Volzhsk overturned the verdict, issued a decision to conduct an additional examination and returned the case for a new trial in the Supreme Court. Recall that on the day of the "Russian March" in November 2012, Konovalova was detained in the Magistrate's Court of Kazan, where she came to support the detained marchers, for carrying a package with the image of a Kolovrat. However, the pagan Kolovrat is clearly not similar to the Nazi swastika to the point of confusion.

In January, a case was initiated in Voronezh under Art. 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (production and distribution of extremist materials) against 15-year-old student of a local technical school. According to law enforcement authorities, the student posted a song on her page on the social network calling for violent actions against the police, and such materials, in terms of police, "are equated with extremist." Meanwhile, to the extremist include only materials recognized as such by the court, and liability for articles of the Code of Administrative Offenses comes only after reaching 16 years.

in January vs. owners of two shops in Karachay-Cherkessia selling Islamic religious literature, announcements were made under Art. 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses. We don't know what a shop in Cherkessk sold literature, and regarding a shop in the village Uchkeken of the Malokarachaevsky district, it is known that it sold books from among 68 Muslim works banned in March 2012 by the Leninsky court Orenburg. The case for the banning of these books, which we consider unlawful, should be reviewed shortly.

At the end of the month it became known that the World Court of Segezha (Republic of Karelia) recognized a follower of Jehovah's Witnesses guilty under Art. 20.29 for distribution banned pamphlets "What Does the Bible Really Teach?" and "Questions youth. Practical advice. Volume 2", and fined him 1000 rubles. Segezhsky The City Court upheld the decision. We consider material ban Jehovah's Witnesses baseless.

Prohibition of materials for extremism

In January, the Sovetsky District Court of Krasnoyarsk two more brochures of Jehovah's Witnesses, "Spontaneous calamity punishment from God?" and "Will you follow a loving leadership of Jehovah?". As usual, the main reason for the ban was that these materials "contain a number of statements aimed at propaganda of the exclusivity and superiority of citizens on the basis of their religious belongings" . Similar motivation, as we have repeatedly pointed out does not stand up to scrutiny, since the belief in superiority of one's own religion over others is naturally characteristic of the majority religious thinkers.

Central District Court of Volgograd in January recognized two sites as extremist, on the pages of which books from collected works of the Turkish theologian Said Nursi "Risale-i Nur". From our point of view, this solution illegal, since the very ban on Nursi's books as extremist is illegal.

The November decision came into force at the end of the month. Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow to ban four videos of the punk band Pussy Riot. Solution entered into force after the Moscow the city court refused to consider the cassation appeal of Ekaterina Samutsevich, without recognizing it as an interested person with the right to appeal.