"Extremist" poet from Krom

In May 2014, a criminal case was initiated under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code against a teacher from the village of Kromy, Orel Region, Alexander Byvshev, who published a poem on a political topic on VKontakte.

Mid May 2014 became aware of the initiation of a criminal case under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (inciting hatred and enmity) against a teacher from the village of Kromy, Oryol region, Alexander Byvshev.

Byvshev, amateur poet, posted on his page on the social network "VKontakte" a sharply polemical poem own composition called "Ukrainian Patriots". Soon after that, a formal harassment campaign was launched against Byvshev: in The regional newspaper "Zarya" published an article "There is no place for such patriots in Russia!", written in the spirit of "the fight against cosmopolitanism", acquaintances stopped communicating with him, a poetry evening planned at a local club was canceled and the reason for cancellation was precisely the position of the teacher.

In connection with the publication of the poem to the prosecutor's office of the Kromsky district of the Oryol region, an anonymous application was submitted, then the materials were received by the department for countering extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Oryol region. And on May 13, 2014 Alexander Byvshev was awarded decision to initiate a criminal case under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code.

The case was initiated on the basis of a linguistic expertise carried out at the initiative of the CPE. An expert, a teacher at the Oryol State University, Lyudmila Vlasova, made the following conclusions: " The hostile nature of the statements towards the Russians in the poem is manifested in statements about the state bodies of Russia and President Putin ("Not an inch of Crimea to Putin's Chekists"). ... These statements contain direct and indirect appeals to Ukrainian patriots to perform the following physical and other actions in relation to the enemy - the Russians: meet the enemies the way their ancestors did ("Meet the enemies, like your grandfathers"); prepare and keep weapons ready ("It's too early for us to hide the cartridges) ; believe that their (Ukrainian) cause is sacred ("May the Lord be your guide")". "Thus, in the text of the poem "To Ukrainian Patriots" there are pejorative statements about Russians."

Charge under Art. 282 UK seems to us unreasonable. The author of the poem, no doubt, expressed hostile attitude towards the "Moskal gang" and, apparently, sought to transfer this hostile attitude to their own - Ukrainian, first of all, judging by text to readers. But these hostile feelings are directed not to ethnicity, but to the type of activity. Thus, the incriminated acts cannot be qualified under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code.

In general, we believe that such appeals were rather harmful to the settlement the then situation in Ukraine, but this assessment remains within the framework of the political spore. It should be taken into account that the extreme severity of the Ukrainian crisis inevitably provokes many to extreme statements that are not characteristic of them in another time. It is better not to resort to criminal prosecution even for the harshest statements, if they do not contain elements of a crime in clearest and most unambiguous form. This consideration is especially worth taking into account when it comes to those or appeals addressed to citizens or the authorities of another country. Otherwise, the actions of law enforcement agencies can only increase the already high tension in society.

On May 16, 2014, the Kromsky District Court recognized Byvshev's poem as extremist. At the same time, the court rejected the investigator's petition to remove Byvshev from work at the school.

Sources

• Zhilin Ivan. Extremist of course // New Newspaper. 2014. April 14.
• Zhilin Ivan. Poems for two // New Newspaper. 2014. May 20.
• A teacher from the Oryol region became a defendant in a criminal case because he condemned the annexation of Crimea // Information agency "Free news. FreeNews-Volga". 2014. May 23.
• Inc. inf.