Unlawful anti-extremism in September 2014

We publish review of the main and most significant developments in the field of illegal enforcement of anti-extremist legislation in Russia in September 2014 of the year.

Rulemaking

In early September, it became known that the Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications has developed a bill amending the Code on administrative offenses. According to this bill, art. 13.15 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (abuse freedom of the media) is proposed to be supplemented with part five, introducing fines for legal entities for the " production and release of mass media, containing public calls for terrorist activities or materials publicly justifying terrorism and/or other extremist materials and/or materials promoting pornography, violence or cruelty ". The amount of fines is provided from 400 thousand to 1 million rubles. The amendment to the Code of Administrative Offenses is intended to introduce responsibility for legal entities (for which such liability is not currently provided, in unlike individuals and officials falling under Part 2 of Art. 205.2 of the Criminal Code and Part 2 of Art. 280 of the Criminal Code). It is also specified that the new article will not be apply to the offense under Art. 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (i.e. distribution of extremist materials included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials).

The very idea of ​​administrative sanctions instead of criminal prosecution seems reasonable enough. But the proposed The amendment also creates the possibility of arbitrariness in relation to the media. Attract to administrative responsibility is much easier than criminal, especially in cases of "calls for extremism" or "propaganda of pornography, violence and cruelty", thus, the media can be ruined by fines.

In mid-September 2014, it became known that The Constitutional Court of Russia refused to consider a complaint against the law "On Information, Information technologies and information protection". The complaint was filed by the director of the Association Internet publishers Vladimir Kharitonov after the site digital-books.ru, belonging to him was blocked because he was on the same IP address as site that promotes drugs. From Kharitonov's point of view, the possibility blocking by IP de facto deprives the right to distribute non-prohibited information and punishes the owners of these sites. However, the definition of the SC states that the rights of site owners who are blocked along with the sites, containing prohibited information are violated not by the fact that the network address turns out to be included in the registry, and " improper actions (inaction) of their hosting provider ". Thus, The Constitutional Court refused to admit a mistake in the law and laid responsibility for blocking to hosting providers.

Criminal prosecution

The Leninsky District Court of Vladivostok found the local resident guilty under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (inciting hatred or enmity) and sentenced him to 1 year and 8 months of probation for publishing in network "VKontakte" "extremist materials", including a video file "Queen of Islam", in which the examination saw "oppositions on religious grounds" . We do not know what other materials published by a resident of Vladivostok on his page. However, the video "Queen Islam" is just a sermon on the need for Muslim women to wear hijab with a call to Muslims not to forbid wives to walk in a Muslim clothes. "Opposition", apparently, is considered the condemnation of Western women who prefer more revealing clothing. From our point of view, the verdict at least partially illegal.

In Chelyabinsk, the trial began, initiated under Part 1 of Art. 280 of the Criminal Code (public calls for extremist activities) against an activist of the "Civil Movement of the Southern Urals" Konstantin Zharinov. Reason for persecution was the fact that Zharinov published on his page in "VKontakte" appeal of the "Right Sector" to the "Russians and other enslaved peoples" with a call for actions of disobedience, the creation partisan detachments, etc. According to Zharinov, he quickly deleted the publication, considers it his mistake, but believes that the interest of the FSB in him is caused by his political science specialization in the history of terrorism, in which he wrote several books. Indeed, Zharinov did not support the appeal, but his publications, incl. in the VKontakte network, aggressive rhetoric, so that law enforcement could limit itself to demanding delete the repost (if it continued to remain on the page). Criminal persecution in this case is a disproportionate measure.

IN Krasnodar, criminal cases were initiated under Art. 280.1 of the Criminal Code (public calls for the implementation of actions aimed at violating the territorial integrity Russia) against Daria Polyudova, Petr Lyubchenkov, Vyacheslav Martynov, Andrey Chernyshev and Sergei Titarenko for trying to hold a march for the federalization of Kuban . Daria Polyudova, an activist of the ROT Front, filed a complaint with the city administration application for a march scheduled for August 17, 2014. 15 August, apparently trying to prevent the action, law enforcement authorities of Krasnodar detained Polyudova, she was sentenced to 14 days administrative arrest on charges of petty hooliganism. March's page social network "VKontakte" was blocked. After two weeks, when Polyudova was supposed to be released, she was charged in extremism, and she was arrested, is in pre-trial detention center No. 5 of the UFSB Krasnodar region. She is also accused under Part 2 of Art. 280 of the Criminal Code (public calls for carrying out extremist activities committed on the Internet). Psychologist Pyotr Lyubchenkov, along with Polyudova, was the organizer of the failed march. Anarchist Vyacheslav Martynov August 17, the day on which the march was scheduled, nevertheless, he went out into the street and received 15 days of administrative arrest. Martynov and Lyubchenkov escaped arrest by leaving for Ukraine. September 26, all three were included to the list of Rosfinmonitoring. Solidarity activist Sergei Titarenko was arrested on September 26, it is known that earlier he participated in actions in support for Ukraine. September 30 from the message of the prosecutor's office about the arrest of Titarenko it became known that Andrei is also a suspect under the same article Chernyshev, details unknown. From our point view, criminal prosecution of organizers and participants of marches for federalization is wrong. The organizers of Russian marches for federalization advocated for granting autonomous rights to certain territories within the framework of the Russian Federation, and not for their separation, so their actions are not at all are subject to Art. 280.1 of the Criminal Code.

In September, a citizen of Ukraine Pavel Ushivets (Grisha Mustang, Mustang Wanted), a roofer who claimed to be him on August 20, 2014 hung out the flag of Ukraine and painted a star on the spire in the colors of the Ukrainian flag high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya embankment in Moscow, announced in international search. He was charged in absentia in a criminal case under Part 2 of Art. 213 of the Criminal Code (hooliganism, committed by a group of persons motivated by political and ideological hatred or enmity) and under Part 2 of Art. 214 of the Criminal Code (vandalism committed by a group of persons based on political and ideological hatred or enmity). Tagansky District Court Moscow decided to arrest Ushivets in absentia. In addition to him, the suspects Vladimir Podrezov, a roofer from St. Petersburg, who was placed under arrest until October, and Kirill Ishutin, formerly a witness for the prosecution, taken into custody for possession of drugs that were found on him during the search. Held in within the framework of the investigation, 11 forensic examinations did not confirm involvement in incident of four base jumpers detained on August 20. However, all four will remain under house arrest until the second half of October. Recall we We believe that the action should be considered rather as an administrative violation (petty hooliganism) than criminal. You can read more about this here .

Administrative persecution

According to Art. 20.29 Administrative Code distribution of materials wrongfully recognized as extremist or storing them for the purpose of distribution to liability in September were eight people involved: chairman religious organization of Muslims "Islam" from the city of Arsenyev Primorsky Territory, imam from the village of Ust-Manchazh, Sverdlovsk region, head of the parish of the village of Novaya Smail, Kirov region, mufti of the mosque "Ramazan" from Yekaterinburg, imam and an entrepreneur from Chechnya and an administrator site http://www.chikolaisiam.ru from North Ossetia and a resident of Perm, about which we will describe in more detail.

In September we for the first time faced with a sentence for a mark in a social network. Resident of Perm Evgenia Vychigina was sentenced to a fine of one thousand rubles under Art. 20.29 for being marked in the forbidden video "The last interview of the seaside partisans". Some the person who Vychigina has on VKontakte's "friends", tagged her (and about 30 others) in a video included in the federal list extremist materials posted on this social network. Young woman confirmed the mark, while, as she herself claims, she did not watch the video. According to her According to the CPE staff, the video was viewed by several dozen Human. Vychigina's guilty verdict seems unlawful to us. It is completely unclear what exactly is the spread of extremist materials that she is charged with: the girl did not make a prohibited video, did not posted a link to it on her page on the social network and did not even put marks on this video. It is a common practice in social networks to mark on photos and videos of friends in order to draw their attention to the material, such dozens of people are often noted in this way, so it is not surprising that Vychigina automatically confirmed the mark and did not watch the video. Evgenia Vychigina pleads not guilty and intends to appeal the verdict in the regional court.

The World Court of the judicial district of the Votkinsky district of Udmurtia sentenced director of the sanatorium-preventorium "Uralskie Zori" to a fine in the amount of 20,000 rubles under Part 2 of Art. 6.17 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (non-application by the person organizing access to information disseminated through information and telecommunication networks in places accessible to children, administrative and organizational measures, technical, software and hardware means of protecting children from information, harmful to their health and (or) development). To disciplinary other found guilty employees were held accountable. occasion was the fact that Wi-Fi worked on the territory of the sanatorium, but there was no a content filtering system was installed and confirmation was not provided age. As a reminder, we oppose prosecution for lack of content filtering by the administration of cafes, Internet cafes, hotels and other similar institutions, since they are designed not only for children (supervision controlled by parents), but also to adult users whose rights should not be limited.

The prosecutor's office of Yuzhno-Salakhinsk opened an administrative case under Part 2 of Art. 20.3 Code of Administrative Offenses against the owner of a bookstore that sold historical study "Soldiers of the Wehrmacht". Administrative persecution is being conducted due to the fact that the store sold the book "Soldiers Wehrmacht", on the cover of which the prosecutor's office found Nazi symbols. We are talking about a book by German historians Sönke Neitzel and Harald Welzer "Soldiers of the Wehrmacht. Authentic evidence of battles, suffering and death", published by the publishing house "Eksmo" in 2013 year. On the cover of the book, indeed, there is a small contour image eagle of the Wehrmacht, the placement of which is fully justified by the content of the book. Wherein the swastika in the claws of an eagle is overlaid with large printed names of the authors. This documentary research exposes the myth of the Wehrmacht's non-involvement in crimes of Nazism committed during the Second World War, that is obviously does not pursue the goal of promoting Nazism. We consider this matter unlawful, since the demonstration of Nazi symbols in the absence of propaganda purposes, from our point of view, should not be subject to persecution.