Unlawful anti-extremism in October 2014

We publish an overview of the main and the most significant events in the field of misuse anti-extremist legislation in Russia in October 2014.

Rulemaking

During October 2014, the State Duma adopted in the second and third reading, and the Federation Council approved the bill "On amending Article 20.3 of the Code of the Russian Federation on administrative offenses (in terms of clarifying the composition of the administrative offenses)". Recall that this document introduces into the text of the Federal Law "On perpetuating the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 years" additions establishing responsibility not only for propaganda and public display of Nazi paraphernalia or symbols similar to confusingly Nazi, or symbols of extremist organizations, but also for propaganda and public demonstration of paraphernalia or symbols " organizations collaborating with groups, organizations, movements or by persons recognized as criminal or guilty of committing crimes in accordance with with the verdict of the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Tribunal) or judgments by national, military or occupation tribunals based on the verdict of the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Tribunal) or carried out during the Great Patriotic War, World War II ". The proposed wording of Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses provides for sanctions for propaganda Nazi, extremist symbols, as well as " paraphernalia, public the display of which is prohibited by federal laws ." In addition, the project complements the law "On perpetuating the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" part of the fifth, providing creation of a list of organizations subject to the ban and their attributes and symbols of the specified organizations. The vague wording of the bill is "compensated" the fact that the procedure for compiling lists of organizations and symbols is entrusted to the government. The drafting is likely to be entrusted to the Ministry of Justice. We believe that this bill, driven solely by political reasons, redundant and of poor quality even by the standards of the current composition of the Duma, and its application will inevitably be highly selective and therefore may lead to undue prosecution.

In the second half of October, the Constitutional Court dismissed Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s complaint about the application Art. 213 of the Criminal Code (hooliganism). As pointed out member of the punk band Pussy Riot Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in her complaint, art. 213 The Criminal Code "disproportionately restricts freedom of expression, allows recognize as a violation of public order the violation of religious norms and determine the criminal nature of acts on the basis of their perception by the majority population as unacceptable" . The CC did not agree with the position Tolokonnikova. As stated in the court ruling, "the challenged norm of the criminal law does not contain uncertainty, as a result of which a person would be deprived ability to realize the wrongfulness of one's act and to foresee the onset responsibility for its commission and which would prevent the uniform understanding and application of this rule by law enforcement authorities, and cannot considered as violating the rights of the applicant" . According to the judges CC, in cases where any method of information dissemination is based on "demonstrative rude disregard for socially accepted notions of acceptable behavior in specific, including those associated with religion, places, devoid of any aesthetic and artistic value and in itself is offensive" , such activities fall outside the legitimate scope of freedom of expression. With our point of view, the practice of applying Art. 213 of the Criminal Code testifies to the absence of uniform understanding by law enforcement authorities. We note that due to shortcomings of the law on countering extremism are ambiguously interpreted in general all related rules, including articles penalizing hate crimes. There are also controversial questions about the degree rudeness of disregard for social norms, as well as the degree of public danger of hooligan acts, not to mention the aesthetic and artistic side of the matter.

Criminal prosecution

In early October, the Naberezhnye Chelny City Court The Republic of Tatarstan recognized the Tatar writer, the head of the Milli Majlis (alternative "National Parliament") of the Tatar people Fauzia Bayramova guilty under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (excitation hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity) in the publication texts on her personal Facebook page and sentenced her to a year of imprisonment conditional freedom. Bayramova sentenced for publishing two materials in February - articles "Beasts and Victims" and Statements of the Milli Majlis on the events in the Crimea and Ukraine. The court agreed with the charge that, by publishing these texts, Bayramova " committed actions aimed at inciting hatred and hostility, as well as to humiliate the dignity of a person and a group of persons on the basis of nationality ". In both texts of Bayramova, from our point of view, there are no signs of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code. "Beasts and Victims" is dedicated to persecution on peaceful Muslims in Tatarstan, committed, according to the author, with the knowledge leadership of the republic, and in the statement about the events in the Crimea and Ukraine, solidarity of Tatar nationalists with the desire of the Crimean Tatar people to independence and disagreement with the policy of the Russian authorities. Bayramov not allowed dangerous appeals in relation to any ethnic groups.

On the same days, the Smolensk Regional Court recognized the deputy Smolensk City Council Andrey Ershov guilty under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (actions, aimed at humiliating the dignity of a group of persons on the grounds of belonging to any social group committed in public) and sentenced him to a fine of 200 thousand rubles. Recall that Yershov at a meeting of the planning and budget commission Smolensk City Council spoke about the proposal to equate juvenile prisoners of fascist concentration camps to veterans of the Great Patriotic War war as follows: " What do we owe to juvenile prisoners concentration camps? The fact that they were not finished off? "During the preliminary investigation were recognized as victims of the Smolensk city branch of the Smolensk regional public organization of former juvenile prisoners of fascist concentration camps represented by a representative, as well as 11 people related to this social group, but the claim for compensation for non-pecuniary damage was not satisfied. We believe that Ershov's statement can definitely be considered degrading and insulting. We think that in this case it is quite appropriate to proceed under the civil code - that is, we do not agree with the refusal of the Smolensk Regional Court in a civil suit. However, we oppose the criminalization of humiliation as such; with our point of view, there was no need for criminal prosecution.

At the beginning of October, a case was initiated in Moscow under paragraph "a" of Part 2 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (inciting hatred with the threat of violence) for posting on Facebook against public activist Pavel Shekhtman, a written undertaking not to leave was taken from him. Shekhtman republished the text of the novel Davidenko, a Ukrainian deputy from the UDAR party, about the murder representatives of the DPR captured Ukrainian servicemen, who refused to give interviews to journalists from Russian channels. Text ended with a call to shoot on the spot "quilted jackets, terashists, and more than Kadyrovites and Ossetians." Shekhtman provided him with his commentary, in which called on Ukrainian troops to shoot the journalist Andrei Stenin, who was then listed as missing, and to kill employees of Russian pro-government channels. From our point of view, law enforcement had every reason to demand that Shekhtman remove the obviously aggressive statements from the public Internet space. However, one may doubt that that law enforcement agencies should have resorted to criminal prosecution for such a small matter. In addition, the object of enmity on the part of the the accused does not comply with the composition of Art. 282, unless, of course, you count "employees Russian pro-government channels" by a protected social group. More you can read about it here .

In the second half of October, a lawyer for a member of the Kaliningrad movement "Committee of Public Self-Defense" Mikhail Feldman Irina Khrunova said that her client filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights person. Feldman complains about the violation of his right to freedom and personal inviolability (Article 5 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and fundamental freedoms) and freedom of expression (art. 10 of the Convention). "Applicant pleads not guilty to the said crime, however, he claims that keeping him in custody is not a justifiable measure, even if he committed this crime," Feldman's complaint to the ECtHR reads. Feldman has been under arrest since April 26, 2014. Recall in April in Kaliningrad on charges under Part 2 of Art. 213 of the Criminal Code (hooliganism, committed by a group of persons by prior agreement or by an organized group or related to resistance to a representative of the authorities) were arrested three activists - Mikhail Feldman, Oleg Savvin and Dmitry Fonarev. According to investigation, they hung the flag of Germany on the building of the FSB on March 11, 2014 “ as a symbol of necessity withdrawal of the Kaliningrad region from the Russian Federation and accession to the European Union, than grossly violated public order."** We do not agree with qualification of this act under Art. 213 of the Criminal Code, which implies the commission hooliganism with the use of weapons - which did not take place - or for the motive hate. However, it is completely unclear, hatred for whom exactly they could be guided by the flag hoist.

In Yuzhnouralsk, at the beginning of the month, a criminal case was initiated under Part 2 of Art. 205.5 of the Criminal Code (participation in the activities of a terrorist organization) in relation to four Muslim members of Hizb ut-Tahrir. By version of the investigation, three of the detainees were distributing leaflets in Chelyabinsk mosques on September 27, 2013. A criminal case was previously initiated against them under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (inciting hatred or enmity, as well as human dignity). Recall we consider it illegal to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir precisely as a terrorist organization and, accordingly, the accusation of its members of participation in such.

In mid-October in Tatarstan, on suspicion of involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir detained eight people. They were also against criminal cases under Art. 205.5 of the Criminal Code.

In mid-October, it became known about the beginning of the trial over six followers of Said Nursi, in a case initiated under Art. 282.2 CC (organization and participation in the activities of an extremist organization) in the Perm Territory. Beyond the residents Perm Territory, among the defendants are followers of Said Nursi from Rostov-on-Don and St. Petersburg (the exact number is unknown). Initially, the case involved seven suspects, but it became known that one of the defendants in June 2014 year was sentenced to probation for a year. Details are not reported. Recall that we are not we consider it lawful to ban the works of Said Nursi, which do not contain any extreme statements, as well as the Nurcular organization, which in Russia did not exist. We oppose the persecution of individual believers, studying the books of Nursi.

Administrative persecution

According to Art. 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (mass distribution of extremist materials or their storage for the purpose of mass distribution) in October was six people were fined, including a bookseller and an executive religious organization from Khanty-Mansiysk, an imam from the Kemerovo region and mufti of the Yekaterinburg mosque - all of them were illegally found prohibited religious literature; two more people - from Perm and Tatarstan - were fined for distributing unjustifiably recognized extremist video of Navalny's supporters "Let's remember To crooks and thieves their Manifesto-2002". In addition, the Perm Regional the court confirmed the decision of Kirovsky District Court of Perm, according to which 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", posted in social network "VKontakte".

Note that in the middle October, a temporary moratorium was introduced in Crimea on the seizure of literature, banned in Russia for extremism. The head of the Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said that such literature should be voluntarily handed over within three months.

In the last days of October, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation overturned the decision of Leninsky district court of Cheboksary, issued in the spring of 2014 and confirmed by the Supreme by the court of the Republic of Chuvashia in relation to the director of the regional branch of OJSC "Rostelecom" Sergei Ivanov. Ivanov was fined under Art. 20.29 Code of Administrative Offenses for two thousand rubles. The provider was blamed that he did not secure the blocking of the materials constituting paragraph 2066 Federal List of Extremist Materials, which, in addition to several lawfully banned videos of nationalists also included the video of Navalny's supporters "Let's remember To crooks and thieves their Manifesto-2002", illegally prohibited. Recall also that, in our view, holding providers accountable for Art. 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses is unlawful in principle, since they are not engaged in intentional distribution of prohibited materials. The Supreme Court found that Ivanov's guilt has not been proven, since the pages containing those recognized as extremist materials were not included in the Unified Register of Prohibited Sites. Thus, precedent has been set for the review of a number of other similar cases against providers in different regions.

Prohibition of materials for extremism, blocking of websites and other state action

In October there were illegally banned as extremist The 52nd Hadith Book of Sahih al-Bukhari of the 8th century and a poem by a teacher from Oryol region Alexander Byvshev "Ukrainian patriots", was the unlawful ban of four songs by Drugorossian Igor Popov with album of the punk project "Resurrection Party". In addition, in Vladimir the trial began in the case of the ban on the video "Additional piety", dedicated to the seizure of the relics of St. Euphemia and Euphrosyne of Suzdal; We consider the claims of the prosecutor's office to the video unfounded.

Among the illegal blocks carried out by Roskomnadzor in October should be called the closure Russian users access to blog hosting lj.rossia.org, the Wayback Machine website (archive.org) - an automatic aggregator Internet content containing a fairly complete archive of the Internet since 1996 (a few days later it was deregistered and unblocked), as well as a number of pages with content, relating to Ukrainian events.

In October, the prosecutor's office announced to citizens a number of unlawful warnings about the inadmissibility of violating the legislation on countering extremist activity: in Kyshtym, Chelyabinsk region warnings were issued to three townspeople who were found to have illegally banned collection of prayers "Fortress of the Muslim", in Sabinsky district of Tatarstan warnings for supporting a religious movement "Tablighi Jamaat" received the imam-khatib of the mosque in the village of Sababash and six local residents.

Unreasonable warnings about the inadmissibility of violation legislation on countering extremist activities received in October and media representatives: "Novaya Gazeta" for the publication of Yulia's article Latynina and radio "Echo of Moscow" - for the program "His eyes" with the participation of the correspondent of Los Angeles Times by Serhiy Loiko about military operations at the Donetsk airport.