Countering “religious extremism”: the Russian state in search of answers to the challenges of desecularization

We publish an article by Alexander Verkhovsky, published in the journal State, Religion, Church in Russia and Abroad (No. 2, 2013).

In the field of application of law to relations, one way or another related to religion, in recent years, those cases that are most striking are those related to the application of anti-extremist legislation, i.e. law "On countering extremist activity" and related norms Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses. Of course, in this is largely due simply to the fact that the concept of "extremism" is attractive to mass media, with the fact that the criminal process is the most interesting, and similar circumstances, but still not only with them. In recent years it is anti-extremist legislation accounts for the bulk of the repressive actions of the state in the area related to religion, that is actions where the authorities draw a strict line of what is acceptable. And since this a rigid border is built quickly and often unexpectedly, this cannot but attract attention.

I. How it started

Russian life in the 1990s was characterized precisely the lack of rigid boundaries of the permissible, this also applied to the area that traditionally associated with the concept of "extremism". For example, democratic the public throughout that decade complained that law enforcement agencies do not crack down on overtly inflammatory propaganda all kinds of radicals, including neo-Nazis, and indeed, pressure on such group was very small [1] .

But at a time when some were preoccupied with the rise far-right movement, others were no less concerned about the onset of new religious movements (NRM), which even then began to be called "totalitarian sects." In the new century, when the Russian far right is known mainly numerous violent crimes, it is difficult to remember that while time they were afraid not for this reason: there were many times fewer such crimes, and fears were associated with the threat of "fascisation of society", that is, if more specifically, with the threat of a bad influence on some citizens, especially young ones, and the threat of a radical change in society and the state as a whole (scenario "Weimar Russia"). Oddly enough, the fear of the NRM could be described in the same way: they were afraid of their bad influence on fellow citizens (“zombie”, fraud with property, family crises, etc.) and changes in the entire social life under the influence of new and unacceptable ideas [2] . The discussions of that time were largely deadlocked precisely because the two completely different threats (regardless of how to assess the adequacy their perceptions) was proposed to be eliminated as one.

In those days, however, no one called "totalitarian sects" extremists, this word was reserved for extreme forms only political activity. "Islamic component", which is now most often associated with the phrase "religious extremism", did not appear immediately and grew very slowly. The first war in Chechnya by both sides only in a very small degree was understood as religious [3] , other radical Muslim groups (such as the Islamic Party revival) were hardly noticeable, "radical Islam" - it was something about Afghanistan and Tajikistan, but not about Russia.

But as NSD activity declined, and in "Republic of Ichkeria" became more and more noticeable not separatists, but extreme Islamists, the situation began to change. Extreme forms of political Islam came to proscenium with the beginning of the second Chechen war, and finally turned into almost synonymous with "religious extremism" in the eyes of public opinion after the terrorist attack September 11, 2001.

Back in 1998, when the INDEM Foundation, by order of the administration President Yeltsin prepared a report "On the goals and means of countering political extremism in Russia" the religious factor in the political extremism was not discussed separately [4] . And here Vladimir Putin, already in his tenure as prime minister, was considering the possibility creation of a special body for religious affairs, linked this, among other things, with problems of "religious extremism" [5] .

The concept of "religious extremism" at the turn of the decade actively promoted in legislation, but these attempts were unsuccessful, like all projects in this area, developed during the Yeltsin era [6] , and instead, in the summer of 2002, the current law “On countering extremist activity”, which will be discussed below. Some belated attempt to catch up was the work of the Workers' group of the Presidium of the State Council of the Russian Federation on countering manifestations of religious extremism in the Russian Federation. Led the group Akhmad Kadyrov, his deputies were Vladimir Zorin and the first deputy Sergei Abramov, head of the Main Directorate for Internal Policy of the President. Already by the person of Kadyrov, it could be assumed that the main object of attention groups will be radical Islamist groups, but will be limited to them I could not. The leaked draft of the working group's concept paper [7] clearly showed that she tried to unite the frame of "religious extremism" immediately and radical Islamists, and "totalitarian sects". The latter included even Pentecostals. However, the group was later disbanded, and the concept "religious extremism" remained exclusively colloquial, and legal Since then, only the wording of the law mentioned above has mattered.

II. Anti-extremist law - what are the main problems

Definition of extremism in law

Law "On counteracting extremist activity", framework in fact, does not contain a conceptual definition of the subject counteraction. Instead, such activity (the law considers it synonymous with extremism) is defined through a list of heterogeneous acts from an attempt coup d'état before painting the swastika on the fence. Such a list is not gives the impression of a holistic one to anyone, it can be easily changed, which is already happened twice, in 2006 and 2007.

It is implied, obviously, that the conceptual definition the basic concept exists in ordinary, newspaper or scientific language, or although would be in jurisprudence. If this were the case, there would be no special problems with the definition in law might not have arisen: after all, legislation uses a lot of concepts that are not defined, but there is a stable understanding of their boundaries, and border issues are few and can be resolved in judicial practice; the most obvious example is murder. But the word "extremism" does not have any any universally recognized meaning in any widespread discourse (although in small groups such a meaning may well form).

When politicians and statesmen, leaders law enforcement agencies talk about "countering extremism", they give examples, and most often these examples refer to acts of violence, among which there are definitely hate crimes, known in international jurisprudence as hate crimes, but also not uncommon references to terrorism, separatist insurgency, etc., as well as public incitement to such actions or their financing. But the definition given in the law, this is far from exhausted.

Here are just a few of the most relevant to the topic of this articles, definitions, and only their religious aspect:

1. " incitement of religious discord,

2. promotion of exclusivity, superiority or the inferiority of a person on the basis of his religious affiliation or relationship to religion

3. violation of rights, freedoms and legitimate interests person and citizen, depending on his religious affiliation or attitude to religion

4. commission of crimes for motives, referred to in paragraph "e" of the first part of Article 63 of the Criminal Code Russian Federation (these include any crimes committed under motive of religious hatred - A.V.) ,

5.   public calls for the implementation of these acts or mass distribution of deliberately extremist materials, as well as their production or storage for the purpose of mass distribution ."

It is quite clear that paragraphs 3 and 4 of this definition refer to acts that are universally considered illegal. Item 3 copy composition of the article "Discrimination" in the Criminal Code. Since December 2011 not qualified the composition of this article has been moved to the Code of Administrative Offenses, but the essence of the matter both in theory and in practice from this has not changed much: discrimination is undeniably illegal, but the punishment for it almost never comes. Item 4 refers to the already generally accepted concept of “hate crimes” is sufficient. This concept is even well understood by Russian law enforcement practice, although very few crimes motivated by religious hatred are recorded in comparison with the shaft of crimes motivated by racial and ethnic hatred [8] .

Public calls for extremist activity form composition of Art. 280 of the Criminal Code, and the meaningfulness of its application clearly depends on whether to what dangerous activity called the accused. Thus, the problems associated with the application of this article, it is usually a reflection of the problems the very definition of extremism, which makes it possible not to consider here separately practice under Art. 280 of the Criminal Code, and move on to the most problematic first two paragraphs the given fragment of the definition.

The boundaries of "inciting discord"

It is important to understand that extremist activity is not always criminal offense. In particular, the definition includes acts similar to description into criminal, but outside the context of the Criminal Code, understood more broadly than criminal, since in this case there is no key for criminal crimes are a sign of a special social danger. This applies, for example, to such an important point of the definition as "inciting religious hatred". So Thus, this paragraph corresponds to both the criminal offenses described in Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (incitement of hatred or enmity towards people or groups of persons or humiliation of the dignity of people on a number of grounds, including attitudes towards religion), so and similar, but not criminal acts [9] ; So that, for example, a newspaper may be closed for a publication whose author will not brought to criminal responsibility.

The very concept of religious and similar "strife" is copied from the text of the Constitution (it existed in Soviet law earlier, in Article 74 of the Criminal Code RSFSR, the predecessor of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), but using it without sufficient restrictions is fraught with excessive restriction of freedom of speech and other freedoms. After all "discord" is a much broader concept than "hatred" or "enmity", and it may be initiated as an indirect consequence of some action or statements that, perhaps, were not directed at her and did not have any antisocial bias. The person should not be responsible for remote, especially for hypothetical consequences, as this wording. This problem itself is not new to justice, and the solution that proposes a law "On counteracting extremist activity", contradicts decision proposed in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. Punishment only for statements that can cause discord, but do not excite hatred and do not call for illegal actions, contrary to Art. 10 European conventions for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms (see, for example, the Ceylan v. Turkey, 1999). But such a punishment also contradicts the foundations of the Russian law, since the presence of guilty intent must be considered in the case. intent may, of course, not be direct, but it is also impossible to impose on a person or organization responsible for consequences that were not even expected.

Even more perplexing is the second of the above points about "religious superiority". What kind of superiority is considered reprehensible to propagandize, the law does not clarify in any way. So don't an understanding of this superiority in proper religious terms is excluded: not “followers of religion X are idiots or swindlers”, and, for example, “our co-religionists will be saved, and the rest will perish in hellfire.” One could count that law enforcement will avoid accepting a religious interpretation inequality, but the extensive practice of recent years has shown that relying on this is just not possible.

Taken together, these points can also be understood in such a way that religious criticism - against a particular faith or religious organization, both from the positions of another faith (including controversy within one religion), and from non-religious positions - also excites discord and affirms someone's superiority, that is, is extremist. A large number of cases when law enforcement understood the religious controversy in this way, prompted The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, in its decision of June 28, 2011, formulates a clear legal position:

"Under the action aimed at inciting hatred or enmity, it should be understood that in particular, statements substantiating and (or) affirming the need genocide, mass repressions, deportations, other illegal actions, including the use of violence, against representatives of any nations, races, adherents of a particular religion and other groups of people. 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, aimed at inciting hatred or enmity” [10] .

Of course, the turns "in particular" and "including" weaken the thesis of the Supreme Court, but he made it clear that it is preferable to understand under the influence of hatred. And it is quite definitely said here what to understand thus it is not possible.

True, it must be borne in mind that the decision under consideration directly relates only to criminal law enforcement, and not to civil cases, including bans on extremist “news materials” and a ban on activities of organizations as extremist.

In order not to give examples of court decisions in the "outback", then is in a situation where there is a temptation to accuse prosecutors and judges of incompetence, let us point to the decision of the Supreme Court itself, adopted for a year and a half before the June 2011 plenum. December 8, 2009 Supreme Court approved the decision to ban the Taganrog organization of Jehovah's Witnesses, that is confirmed the recognition of the organization as extremist solely on the basis of the fact that in a number of texts of Jehovah's Witnesses the superiority of their faith was affirmed, contained criticism of other religions and religious organizations, as well as a ban on blood transfusions was promoted, which, no matter how relate, has absolutely nothing to do with the definition of extremist activities [11] .

Thus, today it would be possible suggest that severe limitations on understanding the concept of "inciting hatred" established by the Supreme Court in 2011, although violated earlier [12] , but still operate at least in the field of criminal law enforcement. For example, in 2012 year in Transbaikalia, Jehovah's Witnesses Raitina's spouses were convicted under Art. 282 UK for distributing texts banned for extremism of his religious organization, but later the Trans-Baikal Regional Court overturned the sentence of Chitinsky district court and recognized the right to rehabilitation for the Raitins [13] . Perhaps the fact that Pussy Riot was charged with hooliganism, and not in inciting hatred, is also the merit of that decision Supreme Court. But at the same time, the very logic of the sentence to the members of Pussy Riot completely contrary to the ruling: criticism of a religious organization (albeit rude in form) is issued in the verdict for displaying hatred for Orthodox people [14] . So Thus, it can be said that the explanations of the Supreme Court could not reverse established practice of law enforcement. Yes, and it is difficult to do this without changing the legislation itself, which gives too many grounds for false interpretations.

Text ban mechanism

Outside of criminal law enforcement, the most problematic mechanism is the mechanism of prohibition of “information materials", that is, any books, images, video and audio recordings, files in computers of any format, pages and sites on the Internet, leaflets, etc. This mechanism, unlike other elements of anti-extremist legislation, is unique in the Council of Europe area, and there are not so many in the whole world analogues. The reason for the uniqueness is not at all in the fact, for example, that “democracy is not allows books to be banned”: it allows the authors of other books to be imprisoned. The reason for the uniqueness of this tool is that, in principle, it cannot work under normal law enforcement and is therefore not used in countries where who take the judiciary seriously.

Such a categorical statement requires an explanation. Especially, that in Russia many people who, on the whole, are in favor of very broad boundaries of freedom words, approve nevertheless this mechanism. In fact, it was designed as soft palliative of criminal prosecution under the already mentioned articles 280 and 282 UK, and even Art. 205-2 (public justification of terrorism): the law provides only an administrative penalty for distributing prohibited materials, and then - only for the mass. The problem is in identifying the “information material." The court is considering a specific sample of it. The simplest example - book. If it is a different edition of the same book, then there is no a priori certainty that it is just as harmful, and consequently, the entire procedure of proof must be carry out first (strictly speaking, even if the publication seems to be the same, not so it is obvious that the copies are identical: what if the pages are torn out or pasted in there). So several times, independently of each other, different (and sometimes even those same) editions of the well-known neo-pagan and anti-Semitic book “The blow of the Russians gods." There is also a case when the book was recognized as different from the previous one. banned, which saved the publisher from punishment, although the book differed only preface [15] . Thus, a stubborn publisher can fight bans indefinitely. the same book. But if for the publisher the rate of reprinting and the rate of prohibition published are at least comparable, then for the author of a leaflet, or a poster, or a drawing the possibilities for variation are also quite large, and in terms of the speed of production, it repeatedly overtake the law enforcement system. And of course, completely it is hopeless to try to eradicate some material on the Internet in this way, if its creators or their supporters have at least a minimum of tenacity; from recent examples are the pathetic attempts to eradicate the equally pathetic film Innocence Muslims" [16] . Thus, the prohibition mechanism can only stop the spread of those materials that are not very eager to distribute. But is such a mechanism?

At the same time, there are many errors in the Federal List, most materials are not identifiable based on the description given, yes, finally, the length of the list itself - at the time of writing this article, it is already almost 1900 points - makes it completely impossible for citizens to use it as a source of knowledge about what exactly should not be distributed.

In itself, the mass nature of the practice of banning materials with inevitability provokes decisions, to put it mildly, ill-conceived. There are many more than prohibitions, which are easier to consider maliciously illegal, but from the absence of malice is no easier for anyone. The current practice is as follows: In total, certain materials are confiscated during a search or as part of some kind of operational work, prosecutors give them for viewing by experts (most often - departmental, but often - working at a local university or somewhere else), then they submit an application to the court, and the court satisfies this application directly with a list. By the way, the simplified order is often completely illegally used. legal proceedings, when the court considers the recognition of materials as extremist not as a dispute about law, but as an establishment of the fact [17] that radically simplifies the work of the court and deprives it of the chances of a reasonable decision.

Most often, Muslims suffer from this practice, since the courts prohibit seized Muslim literature also in lists, not even highlighting those texts that are specific to a particular group, which was being dealt with. Hence the ban on many popular textbooks, collections of hadiths, treatises of medieval Sufis and so on [18] .

Expertise in cases of extremism

Very often one reads that the root of the problem lies in the low quality of the expertise involved, and in many respects this is true [19] . But for some reason, it is overlooked that justice is still not done experts. Moreover, the established practice simply diverged radically from current legislation, and with common sense, and created this situation not experts, although some of them contributed to this development. So what is this radical difference?

Expertise is the use of specialized knowledge and admissible in cases where it is necessary. But expertise cannot replace proper legal conclusion. For example, in a murder case, forensic can identify the gun and the fingerprints on it, but the fact that citizen A shot citizen B is established not by experts, but by the investigation and court. By law, no one has the right to even ask experts about who is who. shot. And this is logical: experts are limited to the scope of their professional competencies, and the law is a 100% prerogative of law enforcement agencies and courts, a legal expert is nonsense (although this happens in practice).

Once upon a time, these simple rules also applied in the sphere covered by anti-extremist legislation. But the nebula of definition extremism [20] , obviously provokes all law enforcement officers to shift responsibility to some other. Therefore, in the last five and even more years, in all matters of prohibition of materials, in all cases of prohibition of organizations, in all criminal cases under the "propaganda" articles of the Criminal Code, and even in almost all cases of violent hate crimes are systematically used involvement of academic or departmental experts. The courts are no longer accept cases without examination.

Expert opinion is requested in many cases where the meaning the message to be analyzed is quite understandable to the average person and, therefore, it should be clear to the investigator and the judge. And then the examination objectively not needed.

Very often, experts do not even have special questions, but there is a desire to get confirmation from them that the analyzed the statement to some extent corresponds to the definition of extremism. For the experts are asked questions that paraphrase this definition in one way or another, composition of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code, etc. This practice, as already mentioned, is illegal, on which the Supreme Court again stated in the cited 2011 ruling, but in This part of the resolution had no effect at all.

Thus, most often expertise in "extremist deeds" should not have been carried out at all. If, for example, it is a public incitement to some illegal actions, inciting hatred to some group, then this public incitement must be at least least understandable to its target group. This target group is usually medium citizens so that law enforcement officers can understand the call and themselves; and if they cannot, then this appeal is obviously ineffective, and, therefore does not pose a public danger, and hidden to ordinary citizens, the meanings that the experts will find are irrelevant to the case.

But there are times when the target group is specific and uses one or another subcultural slang and / or has some specific knowledge to which the author of the text considered in the case can address. Usually it is some kind of religious or religious-political group, but there may be other bands are punk anarchists, for example. Then, indeed, the investigator and the judge simply cannot understand the text themselves in the same way as the target understands it group, they need a kind of interpreter, in a procedural sense, an expert or specialist. But this "translator" should be not just a humanist of this or that a different profile, but a specialist in a specific specific slang, doctrine, subculture. Moreover, a specialist is needed, if not completely neutral (it is almost impossible to find such), then at least not having an a priori obvious position (for example, in the Chelyabinsk process, which was not yet completed at the time of writing, activists of the Islamist party "Hizb ut-Tahrir" religious expertise did several "official" imams). Alas, in practice such narrow specialists are involved extremely rarely, but simply almost never, just because the system for selecting experts is not focused on the described expert work model.

III. What drives contemporary anti-extremist politics in Russia?

Anti-extremist legislation does not concern only religions. And the bulk of law enforcement concerns violent racist crimes and related brutal racist propaganda. But if we turn to those cases where law enforcement was clearly contrary to basic guarantees of civil rights and freedoms, and even contrary to the letter anti-extremist legislation, no matter how unsuccessful it may be formulated, then most of this enforcement in recent years (perhaps, minus 2012, and even then this is debatable) is connected precisely with religion [21] .

In accordance with what was written above about the dual nature Russian understanding of “religious extremism”, mainly these are decisions on cases concerning Muslims, but many decisions in cases concerning new religious movements (primarily the Jehovah's Witnesses). Others suffer too religious movements, including sometimes those oriented towards the Moscow Orthodox patriarchy, if we recall the case of the ban on the slogan “Orthodoxy or death". Those who do not speak on behalf of some religious direction, but, on the contrary, criticizes in one or another, usually sharp, form some of them, more precisely, some religious organization (the case of a blogger Maxim Efimov, who spoke hostilely about the clergy of the Russian Orthodox church [22] ) or even believers in general (the case of journalist Boris Obraztsov [23] ). Is it possible to see some regularity in this law enforcement?

Here it is necessary to immediately make a reservation that such law enforcement and cannot be completely lawful. The fuzziness of the law in coupled with persistent calls to intensify the fight against extremism encourages those law enforcement officers who do not know how or do not they want to look for really dangerous groups, to look for "extremists" anywhere. Some personal antipathies of certain officials may also work. (I suspect that this is how the strange and atypical ban case arose Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, fortunately failed). Thus completely unexpected cases are initiated, and this information noise interferes catch the pattern. However, it can be seen if you turn to although would be the most persistently repetitive elements of law enforcement. Then you can will see, at least in part, in advance, who, how and why uses poor quality of legislation in order to restrict freedom of conscience and associated rights and freedoms.

Law enforcement logic

Undoubtedly the first and still the most powerful trend in "near-religious" anti-extremist law enforcement is the one that oriented in principle against extreme forms of political Islam. Reality the threat to public safety is obvious here, but, unfortunately, from the very the beginning of law enforcement decided to start from “obviousness”, and not follow the normal procedure.

Already on February 14, 2003, the Supreme Court in one decision banned 15 Muslim organizations starting with al-Qaeda as terrorist. This the decision was not published for several years, and when it was published, it did not there were found practically no grounds usual for judicial decisions for prohibition of these organizations [24] . On each organization has one or two paragraphs there without any reference to facts and especially their sources. In fact, the Supreme Court broadcast a dot from the point of view of the special services, without giving any evidence to the public. And since then the situation has not improved: speaking of radical Islamist groups, society forced, as a rule, to choose between information from special services and information supporters of these groups, neutral analysis is almost not used.

Of course, no one doubts that al-Qaeda or Egyptian "Al-Jihad" - terrorist groups. Which should not, however, spare the court from need to justify their decisions. But here, for example, banned at the same time the Islamist party "Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami" - it really advocates for the creation of a caliphate in which democratic rights and freedoms and who will wage aggressive war, and therefore her activity is directed against the foundations of the constitutional order of Russia. Besides it is often accompanied by the preaching of intolerance and anti-Semitism [25] . But on the other hand, one can definitely say that Hizb ut-Tahrir is not involved in any terrorist actions, does not prepare them and does not even call for them: this is her strategy. The ban on this party as a terrorist party has given rise to a huge number of cases against its real or perceived members, but did not stop it distribution in Russia, and most importantly, it now does not allow to seriously investigate the real activity of this party, which is becoming more and more visible in the most diverse regions of the country. Thus, the slovenliness of the decision of the Supreme Court gave rise, on the one hand, a whole string of controversial cases, and on the other hand, deprived society, and partly the state itself, the ability to effectively counteract anti-constitutional propaganda.

Meanwhile, circle suspected Muslim groups and movements expanded. Without getting into the twists and turns of this process, we note only one more of its key milestones - a large-scale campaign against the followers of the Sufi teacher Said Nursi, including numerous bans on his writings, persecution for their distribution, and most importantly, a ban on The Supreme Court of the Nurcular organization as an extremist and a whole string of subsequent criminal cases against its alleged members [26] . Meanwhile, there are no traces of the existence of such an organization in Russia, no one I didn’t see, except for all the same special services, and its “members” are just people with a special reverently related to the heritage of Nursi, who, by the way, although he was tough opponent of the ultra-secular Atatürk regime, did not call for violence, and now his works and the activities of his followers in Turkey are not prohibited. The persecution of the followers of Nursi does not have, in contrast to the persecution followers of Hizb ut-Tahrir, not only full-fledged, but also some kind of legal grounds, apart from the ridiculous accusations of Nursi's texts in promoting exclusivity Islam and the like. But you can see the connection of this strange repressive campaign with conspiracy theories about a powerful "empire" now the most prominent follower of Nursi - Fethullah Gülen [27] .

Thus, major source of unreasonable or even misuse anti-extremist legislation is the activity of special services and acute the lack of discussion of this activity on the merits and in the expert community, and in society as a whole. But one cannot, of course, reduce the problem to repressive law enforcement instincts.

The logic of the spontaneous defenders of secularism

Moving on to the next source of "illegal anti-extremism", Let us note that both in these bodies themselves and in society as a whole, it is widespread a lack of understanding of how people immersed in religion think and perceive. Reading their texts through the eyes of a person who is far from religion and unwilling (or simply unable) to understand such texts, gives truly amazing results. We often see them in the opinions of experts, but the matter, I repeat, is not in experts, but in the fact that their way of thinking is by no means unique. If the expert and behind him the prosecutor and the judge (and not just one) think that the slogan “Orthodoxy or death! should be understood as a call like "life or wallet!", This means that they themselves are not only incapable of reading this slogan otherwise, but also incapable of hear explanations from the other side.

But this is an Orthodox slogan, what can we say about the attitude to religious texts of various minorities. For example, forbidding the book of Said Nursi "The Tenth Word on the Resurrection from the Dead", the Krasnoyarsk court saw a call to violence in the very comparison of believers with the army. And in Krasnodar, an expert on case of Jehovah's Witnesses saw a call to violence in the prophecy of the Last Judgment. However, to quote samples of the complete rejection of the religious text by experts possible almost infinitely.

It can even be assumed that pressure campaigns on certain other religious movements actually seek to eradicate the religious component of the life of the relevant organizations and those oriented towards them citizens. Anatoly wrote about this back in 2006 using the example of Muslim groups. Pchelintsev [28] . Of course, no one publicly proclaims such a task, and, most likely, not enough who thinks it through at all, but unusual in the eyes of people, from religious distant lives, manifestations of the religious cannot but arouse suspicion, and anti-extremist campaigns against certain currents show how this suspicion is realized.

The logic of the defenders of "traditionality"

Suspicion may not be based on an underlying rejection of "too active" religiosity, but on the rejection of some particular religion or, even more simply, on the rejection of opponents of that religious movement, to who owns or sympathizes with the participant of the investigation and judicial affairs. For example, in cases involving real or alleged Islamic radicals, the position of representatives or open supporters of official spiritual administrations. One example has already been given above, involving such imams as religious experts, but different forms of alliance law enforcement agencies with spiritual directorates are numerous. In the very there is, of course, nothing wrong with cooperation between them, as in any cooperation of the authorities with public forces. But a specific religious the position of religious leaders should not be uncritically accepted by representatives states, and that is exactly what has been happening for many years.

A common theory is that political radicalization Islam in Russia is a product of "religious import" is not without reason and a natural conclusion is drawn from it about the need to support the “traditional Islam." This conclusion itself needs to be discussed, but we are interested here another conclusion, paired with him, is that "religious imports" themselves should be banned. But how do it? For example, the old Dagestan law on the prohibition of Wahhabism has long been showed its complete inapplicability. And in Tatarstan in 2012 it was adopted regional law, which establishes the obligatory nature of only the Russian religious education for clergy (or foreign, if diplomas "recognized in due course", which is not so simple) [29] . Moreover, the State Duma on February 22, 2013 the State Duma adopted in the first reading a bill that gives the regional authorities the right to " determine requirements for the religious education of ministers and religious personnel .” That is, the Tatarstan practice will soon begin to spread. The purpose of such laws is obvious - to squeeze imams out of religious organizations who have received education in Arab countries, among which there are more often supporters radical political Islam. At the same time, the legislator is ready to neglect the fact that that a diploma from Al-Azhar or another Arab university is by no means extremist ID. The legislator was ready to forget at the same time about many other religious organizations that do not have and simply cannot yet be clergymen who received religious education in Russia. Simply speaking, the legislator is ready for any manipulation of the religious space in the name of security.

And it's not just religious organizations. Quite secular specialists can transform an interfaith dispute into accusation of extremism. A good example is the expert conclusion prepared in the forensic laboratory of the Federal Security Service for Sverdlovsk region on a number of texts of Jehovah's Witnesses [30] and served as the basis for several cases at once. In fact, this examination boils down to a long explanation of the differences between the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses and orthodox Christian, and then, without a clear logical connection, conclusion that the texts expressing this doctrine “contain information that is clearly, unambiguously and directly directed to incite hatred, propaganda of exclusivity and humiliation of the human dignity on the basis of attitude to religion. In essence, it is presumed here that the very deviation from orthodoxy is already against the law.

How the three described action logics are combined

Thus, one can see two fairly massive operating causes of negative prejudice towards potential targets anti-extremist law enforcement. They can be conditionally designated as protection secularism from "too" active religious activity (in this series, for example, there are also popular discussions about Muslim headscarves in the context countering extremism) and how to protect “traditional religions” from non-traditional or from some performances that are perceived as secular or atheistic attacks on "traditional religions". Can these two motives combined in one person? Undoubtedly, such a combination - characteristic post-secular phenomenon, but still it must be remembered that it consists of two independent components.

It can, of course, be said that the reason for the prejudice against "non-traditional" religiosity, whatever these words mean - in a low qualifications of experts, investigators or judges, but it cannot be denied that Such reasoning does not occur in a vacuum. Common, although not based on law, the rhetoric about the special role of "traditional religions" cannot not to act, and this banal circumstance need only be mentioned. It is more important to note that in addition to the widespread hostility towards the NRM and, in general, towards unusual religious manifestations on law enforcement practice, perhaps there is a fairly common conceptualization of the rejection of "religious innovations" as a potential security threat.

In itself, the causal relationship between "religious innovation” and the conflict that arises around it is not far-fetched. About her (though not directly) was mentioned, for example, in the draft “Concept of the State Religious policy of the Russian Federation”, developed at the end of 2003 at the Department of Religious Studies Russian Academy of Public Administration (RAGS) [31] . But this is reasoning lends itself very easily to trivialization under the influence of common ideas about the need to protect traditions from any changes. Unfortunately, it is trivialized ideas about security that are much easier to digest those who directly pursue anti-extremist policy in the field, concerning religion. And the persecution of readers of Said Nursi, and cases of actions contemporary art can also be understood as a defense of traditionalism as such. As expected, religious tradition here is unambiguously linked with ethno-national traditionalism, which was clearly seen, for example, back in the text of the verdict on the exhibition "Caution, religion!" [32] .

IV. Preliminary conclusions

The sphere of opposition to what is in colloquial speech called "religious extremism", turned out to be extremely problematic immediately after two reasons.

First, the applicable law on "countering extremist activity" turned out, for reasons, no having nothing to do with religion, extremely unsuccessful, and it formed an amorphous a legal field in which no one understands what exactly is legal and what is not. This legislation provokes arbitrary and thus repressive decisions.

Secondly, of course, there are people, groups and even whole movement, whose activities are somehow related to religion (in the range from religious fundamentalism to aggressive atheism) and generates more or less serious offenses ranging from petty hooliganism to actual murder or potential threat to the constitutional order. Some of these groups are good. studied, some not studied at all, but for the general public and, unfortunately, for government and law enforcement agencies, all this activity is “around religion” seems incomprehensible, since it does not fit into the usual forms.

As a result, it is not possible to build a reasonable classification threats and sound policies to prevent them. And space to fight "religious extremism" gradually occupied by a variety of groups with their own interests and their own, not joining with each other, ideas about the permissible and unacceptable. Employees law enforcement agencies were able to successfully work for their "anti-extremist reporting" and implement attractive for them conspiracy theories. Figures of different religious and other ideological organizations and groups were able to interpret the activities of their opponents as extremist and demand from law enforcement agencies persecution of these opponents (and it’s good that law enforcement officers are moving far from all such complaints against each other).

AND the accusers and the accused may be supporters or opponents of certain religious or secular views, may themselves be radical or moderate (there are incredibly many options for accusations of extremism in practice), but solutions they do not accept (in particular, not the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church, for example), namely law enforcement agencies, albeit with some coordination of their policies with political leadership and with dominant public opinion. law enforcement system, combining pragmatic interests with ideas absorbed from everywhere, including from the groups appealing to it, de facto conducts such "anti-extremist policy", in which elements of the implementation of religious elements into secular law and which in parallel is becoming more repressive.

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[1] See almost zero statistics of sentences under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (inciting hatred and enmity, until 1996 - Art. 74 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR) for 1991-1998. in: Fedotov Mikhail. The concept of abuse of freedom of the mass media // Legislation of the Russian Federation and mass media. M.: Center "Law and Mass Media", 1999 ( http://www.medialaw.ru/publications/books/medialaw2/comment/6.html )

[2] Now it is not so interesting to analyze the public fears of that time, but it is worth noting that the fear of a radical change in the way of life under the influence of the NRM and their alleged global allies was shared and conceptualized, including by quite respected people: Trofimchuk N.A., Svishchev M.P. Expansion. M .: Department of Religious Studies of the RAGS under the President of the Russian Federation, 2000.

[3] Alexey Malashenko, Dmitry Trenin. South time. (Moscow: Gandalf, 2002). pp. 69-112.

[4] The report is now available on the website of the Panorama Center ( http://www.panorama.ru/works/patr/govpol/indem.html ).

[5] Igor Ponkin. Establishment in Russia of a Federal Body for Religious Associations: Pros and Cons // Religion in Russia. 2002. April 3 (now available: http://web.archive.org/web/20031114045854/http://religion.russ.ru/state/20020403-ponkin.html ).

[6] I wrote about this in detail in: Verkhovsky A. State policy towards radical national associations. 1991–2002 Moscow: SOVA Center, 2013, pp. 121-151.

[7] The document gained real fame after its publication in: Nadezhda Kevorkova. “The ideology of permissiveness and selfishness” // Newspaper. 2002. December 5th.

[8] There are no official statistics on hate crimes. The statistics collected by the SOVA Center since 2009 are available on its website: http://www.sova-center.ru/database/ .

[9] However, it is appropriate to make a reservation here that in our criminal law enforcement, the sign of a special public danger, which, according to part 2 of article 14 of the Criminal Code, distinguishes a criminal act from a similar, but not criminal, is practically not used in cases of inciting hatred or enmity . Obviously, in relation to a public utterance, the public danger - if the utterance is dangerous - is proportional to the breadth of the distribution of the utterance and the purposefulness of this distribution. Simply put, a call for a pogrom made by someone on his Facebook page, visited by a dozen friends, is less dangerous than the same call made on central television, and a call for a pogrom sounded at an arbitrary moment in the middle of Tverskaya Street is less dangerous, than at a rally consisting of people already in the mood for a pogrom. But I am not aware of any case when these aspects were seriously discussed in court. Obviously, this is not a lack of individual judges, but the lack of a clear and effective explanation of the relevant norms of the law. For example, in most published comments on the Criminal Code, the concept of "publicity" in relation to the statement is interpreted as a statement addressed to "an indefinite circle of persons", but such a comment does not give anything to assess the degree and quality of publicity.

[10] The text of the Decree of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. 11 “On judicial practice in criminal cases on crimes of an extremist orientation” dated June 28, 2011 // Website of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. 2011. June 29 ( http://www.supcourt.ru/Show_pdf.php?Id=7315 ).

[11] The full text of the decision of the Rostov Regional Court approved by the Supreme Court is available on the website of the SOVA Center ( http://www.sova-center.ru/files/xeno/rostov-reshenie-090911.doc ). The decision was made on the basis of extensive expert opinion and, as usual, repeats it in many respects. The text of this opinion is also available on the SOVA Center website ( http://www.sova-center.ru/files/xeno/jw-expert-rostov-090715.doc ).

The decision was made on the basis of extensive expert opinion. and in many respects it, as usual, repeats. The text of this opinion is also available on the SOVA Center website ( http://www.sova-center.ru/files/xeno/jw-expert-rostov-090715.doc ).

[12] The most high-profile cases were those that could be classified as “criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church”, namely the cases of the exhibitions “Beware of Religion!” and Forbidden Art 2006, but they are by no means the only ones.

[13] With the practice of acquittals of Jehovah's Witnesses on charges under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code can be found on the website of the SOVA Center, starting from the news: Raitina's spouses from Chita were acquitted // SOVA Center. 2012. October 23 ( http://www.sova-center.ru/misuse/news/persecution/2012/10/d25610/ ).

[14] The text of the verdict is available, for example, on the Gazeta.ru website ( http://www.gazeta.ru/social/photo/pussy_riot.shtml?photo=4733485 ). My detailed criticism of the verdict: Verkhovsky A. After the verdict of Pussy Riot // Daily magazine. 2012. August 23 ( http://ej.ru/?a=note&id=12171 ).

[15] Aslambek Ezhaev, head of the publishing department of the Moscow Islamic University under the Council of Muftis of Russia, republished in 2007 the book by Muhammad Ali al-Hashimi "The Personality of a Muslim in the form that Islam seeks to give it with the help of the Koran and the Sunnah." The publishing house completed distribution of the book after it was banned (as part of one of the first large "list" bans), but before it appeared on the Federal List, and the accused under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code, Ezhaev claimed that he simply did not know about the ban. But it was not this that helped him, but only the fact that his edition had a different preface.

[16] Kravchenko Maria. Misuse of anti-extremist legislation in Russia in 2012 // Xenophobia, freedom of conscience and anti-extremism in Russia in 2012. Moscow: SOVA Center, 2013, pp. 111-112.

[17] Sultanov Aidar. Protection of freedom of conscience, dissemination of beliefs through the prism of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. M.: Statut, 2013. S. 195-197.

[18] This practice is more than one year old. It doesn't seem to be summarized anywhere, but in the news and reports of the SOVA Center we constantly monitor it. See, for example, the latest report: Ibid. pp. 119-123.

[19] Much has been written about this. See, for example, the article by Inna Zagrebina in this issue.

[20] In 2012, the authoritative body of the Council of Europe, the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), confirmed the inconsistency of the law “On Counteracting Extremist Activity” with the principle of legal certainty. A translation of her conclusion is available on the website of the SOVA Center ( http://www.sova-center.ru/misuse/publications/2012/07/d24899/ ).

[21] This trend has been noted from year to year in the reports of the SOVA Center on the misuse of anti-extremist legislation. All of them can be found in the collections of the Center of the series "Xenophobia, freedom of conscience and anti-extremism in Russia" and can be seen on the Center's website ( http://www.sova-center.ru/misuse/publications/ ).

[22] Kravchenko M. Decree. Op. S. 123.

[23] Verkhovsky A. Illegal application of anti-extremist legislation in Russia in 2011 // Xenophobia, freedom of conscience and anti-extremism in Russia in 2011. Moscow: SOVA Center, 2012, pp. 104-105.

[24] The failure to publish a judgment that gave rise to criminal prosecutions is itself unlawful. The decision of the Supreme Court was first published on Memorial's website ( http://www.memo.ru/hr/jbl/doc/2.htm ), but the first official publication of at least a list of organizations followed only in 2006.

[25] See: Judgment in the case of Y. Kasymakhunova and M. Saibatalova, issued by the ECHR on March 14, 2013 // HUDOC. 2013. March 14 ( http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-117127#%7B%22itemid%22:[%22001-117127%22]%7D ).

[26] For brevity, the details of these cases are not given here. But constant monitoring of these and other illegal anti-extremist cases is carried out by the SOVA Center and is displayed in the news feed of its website, mainly at http://www.sova-center.ru/misuse/news/persecution/ .

[27] Details of the campaign are discussed in detail in: Ponomarev Vitaly. Russian special services against "Risale-i Nur": 2001-2012. Moscow: Memorial Human Rights Center, 2012.

[28] Pchelintsev Anatoly. Is it possible to do without religion in Islam? // Religion and law. 2006. No. 1-2.

[29] Law of the Republic of Tatarstan "On Amendments to the Law of the Republic of Tatarstan "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations" // Rossiyskaya Gazeta website. 2012. August 3 ( http://www.rg.ru/2012/08/ 03/tatarstan-zakon-sovest-reg-dok.html ).

[30] Text by expert S.A. Mochalova is available in the author's archive.

[31] The concept of the state religious policy of the Russian Federation // Religion and Mass Media. 2004. February 5 ( http://www.religare.ru/2_8227.html ).

[32] The text of the verdict is available on the SOVA Center website ( http://www.sova-center.ru/religion/news/education-culture/relationships/sakharov-exhibition/2005/03/d4132/?originals=1 ) .

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