A deputy of the Smolensk City Council, who insulted minor prisoners of concentration camps, was convicted under Art. 282

On October 2, 2014, the Leninsky District Court of Smolensk found Andrey Ershov, deputy of the Smolensk City Council, guilty of humiliating the dignity of former juvenile prisoners of concentration camps and sentenced him to a fine.

On October 2, 2014, the Leninsky District Court of Smolensk recognized the deputy of the Smolensk City Council, Andrei Ershov guilty under part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (actions aimed at humiliating dignity of a group of persons on the grounds of belonging to any social group committed publicly) and sentenced him to a fine of 200 thousand rubles.

Recall Ershov at a meeting of the planning and budget commission of the Smolensk City Council 4 convocation, held in the building of the Administration of the city of Smolensk, spoke on about the proposal to equate juvenile prisoners of fascist concentration camps with veterans of the Great Patriotic War as follows: " What are we owe to juvenile prisoners of concentration camps? The fact that they were not finished off? "

How informs the Investigative Committee, during the preliminary investigation they were recognized as victims Smolensk city branch of the Smolensk regional public organization former juvenile prisoners of fascist concentration camps represented by a representative, as well as 11 people belonging to this social group.

At this in March 2013 Smolensky the regional court overturned the decision of the city court, according to which Ershov must was to pay 10 thousand rubles each to the plaintiffs in the civil case against him Nelly Podlesnaya and Nadezhda Khatutskaya (who died at the time of the proceedings) for inflicting moral damage on them.

We believe that Ershov's statement can definitely be considered humiliating dignity and offensive. We think that in this case it is appropriate proceedings within the framework of the administrative and civil codes - then is, we do not agree with the acquittal decision of the Smolensk Regional Court on civil suit.

However we oppose the criminalization of humiliation as such, with our point of view, there was no need for criminal prosecution. In addition, we We believe that juvenile prisoners of concentration camps do not represent a group subject to protection by anti-extremist legislation. Recall also that we are convinced that the concept of "social group" should be excluded from the composition of anti-extremist articles, since it does not have clear definition in the law.

Sources

• Deputy of the Smolensk City Council found guilty of humiliating the dignity of former juvenile prisoners of Nazi concentration camps // Website of the Investigative Committee of the TFR for the Smolensk region. 2014. October 2.
• Andrey Ermolaev. Andrey Ershov won the trial against former juvenile prisoners of concentration camps // SmolCity.Ru. 2013. March 27.