The Ministry of Justice is on guard: materials from Ogonyok, Charter 97 and the United Russia website are now on the Federal List

On February 19, 2013, the Federal List of Extremist Materials was once again updated . In addition to the already mentioned articles by Yuri Afanasyev and Vladislav Inozemtsev, in which we (as well as the editors of the Liberal Mission Foundation, Radio Liberty and Ogonyok magazine, where these articles were published before they were reprinted by recognized extremist publications) could not detect signs of extremism, a number of other texts were wrongfully (or partially wrongfully) included in the list.

We are talking about articles from No. 2 of the Radical Politics newspaper for 2011. Obviously, the Central District Court of Omsk, by its decision of November 28, 2012, recognized the entire issue of “Radical Politics” as extremist material, without considering the articles individually (however, listing the newspaper’s materials separated by commas).

In our opinion, the materials from this issue are divided into texts that are legally recognized as extremist, those that are illegally recognized as such, and curiosities.

For example, the issue in question opens with the text by Boris Stomakhin, “Anniversary of Freedom in the Land of Slaves,” containing calls for violence. Material "Push the Falling One!" offers open aggressive calls for violence. There are also calls for violent actions in Oleg Mikhalevich’s “Instructions against informers.” The article “Right of Reply” by Mikhail Gerasimov, reprinted from the Georgia Online website, is extremely harsh in its assessment of Russian foreign policy and ends with a call for Georgia to create “underwater special forces” capable of fighting the Mistral aircraft carriers purchased by Russia.

At the same time, the text “Only the freedom of Ichkeria...” contains a call for the separation of Chechnya from Russia, but does not contain calls for violent action, and non-violent separatism, in our opinion, cannot be prosecuted as extremist activity.

However, the leaflet of the Democratic Union party dated August 19, 1991 (sic! – Ed. ) reproduced in the newspaper is of exclusively historical value. The essay “Treaty vs Norm” by the famous Omsk human rights activist Viktor Korb (reprinted from his website , before appearing in “Radical Politics” was republished on several Internet resources) analyzes the terms “agreement” and “norm” and any signs of extremism in it is missing. Reprinted from the Belarusian opposition website "Charter 97", Andrzej Poczobut's article "On the difficulties of trading in human goods" sharply criticizes Lukashenko's policies - and nothing more. The article by Pavel Lyuzakov, editor of the Svobodnoe Slovo newspaper, “There will be no political zones. There will be death camps,” is devoted to the creation of special zones, where, according to the author, political prisoners will soon be sent - and also does not, in our opinion, contain any signs of extremism. The republication of Inozemtsev’s article from Ogonyok also belongs to this group of materials.

Curiosities include, for example, “The War against Freedom of Conscience” - a collection of information materials about the trials in the case of Kalistratov, the Bhagavad Gita and, for some reason, the case of Rudnev and Ashram-Shambhala; “Good News” – a selection of headlines from news agencies for July-August 2011; The “Harm Reduction Program” is a parody of similar instructions for drug addicts, supposedly for believers.

Separately, it is worth describing the text designated in the list as “Congratulations from the President.” This completely neutral information message about the awarding of orders to the special forces brigade that participated in the operation in Georgia is in fact the epigraph of the “Untitled Work” authored by “Antoshi Ruchkin” (this supposedly satirical “work” is rightfully recognized as extremist, at least in part). If you follow the Federal List of Extremist Materials, now not only the news that originally appeared on the website kremlin.ru, and then published , in particular, on the United Russia website, which literally coincides with the banned one, but also hundreds of its republications are subject to the ban.

Thus, the question again arises about the quality of the Federal List, the possibility of its practical application and, in general, the need for this tool.

Sources

• Federal list of extremist materials // Official website of the Ministry of Justice.
• A reprint of news from the Kremlin website was included in the list of extremist materials // Lenta.ru. 2013. February 22.