Unlawful anti-extremism in May 2015

We publish review of the main and most significant developments in the field of illegal application of anti-extremist legislation in Russia in May 2015.

Rulemaking

At the end of May the President signed the law on "undesirable foreign organizations". Recall that the law states that "the activities of a foreign or international non-governmental organization that poses a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation, the country's defense or security state, may be declared undesirable on territory of the Russian Federation ". Decision this is accepted by the Prosecutor General's Office with the participation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice. For continuing it activities are subject to administrative and criminal liability, involving a fine of up to 500 thousand rubles, forced labor for up to five years with possible restriction of freedom up to two years, arrest for up to six months or imprisonment for up to six years.

From our point of view, the vague wording, defining "undesirable activity" is not directed against extremist or terrorist organizations whose activities are already subject to the relevant legislation. Law obvious thus creates a new lever for suppressing the activities in Russia of various, and not only foreign, civil society organizations (including religious, but probably commercial as well) and could form the basis for massive violations of human rights.

Criminal prosecution

In the middle of May Pervouralsky The City Court of the Sverdlovsk Region sentenced a local resident Elvira Sultanakhmetova to 120 hours of compulsory work under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (actions aimed at inciting hatred and enmity, as well as humiliation of the dignity of a person and a group of persons on the basis of their attitude to religion, committed in public). According to the prosecution, Sultanakhmetova, answering the Internet survey "Can a Muslim celebrate New Year?”, referring to the Koran, spoke out against the celebration. she urged Muslims not only not to celebrate the New Year, but also not to wear St. George's ribbons and not paint Easter eggs, as they do " vile pagans ." Congratulations "Happy New Year!" Sultanakhmetov compared with murder or adultery, and a round dance around the New Year tree also considered the legacy of some bloody pagan ritual. We believe Sultanakhmetova's verdict is unlawful. There were no dangerous calls in her entry in against the Gentiles, and the question of whether to count those who celebrate the New Year, Easter and Victory Day by "pagans" and "polytheists", does not apply to the field of law.

At the end of the month, a case was sent to the Leninsky District Court of Makhachkala Part 2 Art. 280 (public calls for extremist activity), part 1 of Art. 282 (inciting religious hatred) and Part 1 of Art. 222 of the Criminal Code (illegal acquisition and storage of ammunition) in respect of Shamil Magomedov. According to the investigation, crimes under Art. 280 and 282 of the Criminal Code were that Magomedov placed in file-sharing network FlyLinkDC++ the text of the forbidden treatise of the XVIII century - "The Book of Monotheism" by Muhammad ibn Suleiman at-Tamimi. We consider such a ban to be unlawful. Accordingly, it seems to us unlawful to prosecute Magomedov for "extremism".

At the end of May it became known that in Bakhchisaray The district court of the Republic of Crimea is considering the case under Part 2 of Art. 282 UK (inciting hatred and enmity with the use of violence or with the threat of it applications) in relation to the locksmith of the housing and communal services of the village of Zheleznodorozhnoye Mustafa Yagyaev. Case was initiated after a quarrel between Yagyaev and employees of the accounting department of the housing and communal services. Yagyaev, who does not agree with the assessments of the consequences of the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation, issued by colleagues, began to shout, use in relation to them offensive epithets - and, according to investigators, said the following: " Crimea we will return to Ukraine, there will be a war, we will cut and burn you, and the Russians in this the war will choke on blood, but it's a pity that my Muslim brothers will die " (The defendant himself categorically denies that he made such a statement). About this, actually domestic, conflict became known in the CPE, whose employees and filed a case. As part of the investigation into the criminal case of Yagyaev (practitioner Muslim, in the 90s - a member of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis) was held search, during which religious literature, computer hard disks, various documents. In our opinion, the case under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code in relation to Yagyaev was illegally initiated. Even assuming that he really threatened employees with violence, these statements were not made publicly because they were addressed to three women who were within one room.

At the end of May, it became known about the criminal case on Art. 280.1 of the Criminal Code (public calls for the implementation of actions aimed at violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation), initiated Investigation Department of the FSB Directorate for the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol in regarding the head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people Refat Chubarov; he will put on the international wanted list. According to investigators, in April 2015 Refat Chubarov, in an interview with Ukrainian media, called for the violation of territorial integrity Russian Federation, namely " to the exclusion of the Republic of Crimea from the Russian Federation and its accession to the territory of Ukraine . "What kind of interview was the reason for initiating the case, is not specified, but it is known that 1 April 2015, the Ukrainian "Channel 5" showed an interview with Chubarov, in which he demanded the return of Crimea to Ukraine and stated that the Ukrainian people should be ready " for an open full-scale war with the Russian Federation ". In our opinion, Chubarov's statements made in this interview (if the consequence has in mind just him), should be taken rather as figure of speech than a call to war. In addition, in our opinion, the initiation of proceedings about "separatism" in relation to the leader of the Mejlis is unacceptable: it is impossible accuse of separatism a person who did not recognize the accession. Besides the question of the annexation of Crimea, clear from the point of view of Russian laws, is not so clear from the point of view of international law, and the inhabitants of the peninsula must have the right to have an opinion in this dispute.

Two illegally initiated earlier criminal cases on extremism in May were discontinued.

At the beginning of the month, employees of the Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Republic Mari El told the coordinator of the "Left Front" in Yoshkar-Ola Andrey Svistunov that the criminal case initiated against him under Art. 205.2 CC (public calls for terrorist activities or public justification of terrorism). The investigation was launched in 2012 in connection with with what the activist posted on his page on the social network "VKontakte" links to documentaries about the activities of foreign radical left organizations filmed by several Russian TV channels and shown on television.

At the end of May, the court of the Moscow district of Kazan terminated the criminal proceedings due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, initiated under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (inciting national hatred) against Rashit Akhmetov, editor of the Kazan weekly Zvezda Povolzhya. The criminal case against Akhmetov was initiated in March 2015 by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Tatarstan together with the prosecutor's office of the Moscow region of Kazan. The reason was a reprint by him in 2011 in the newspaper Zvezda Volga region" article by Fauzia Bayramova "We are Tatars, not Russians", published in the Chuvash newspaper "Bribe". This article has been published in the "Star of the Volga Region" back in 2011 year, but law enforcement agencies did not stop the statute of limitations. Bayramova's article contained harsh statements about the Russians, but direct aggressive There were no invitations. However, on October 3, 2014, the article was declared extremist, and the editor-in-chief newspaper "Bribe" was soon sentenced for its publication under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code to mandatory work. From our point of view, both the prohibition of the article and the persecution of members of the press for its publication.

Administrative persecution

In May, we learned that that under Art. 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses for distribution of prohibited materials or possession those for the purpose of distribution were sentenced to fines by four individuals persons and one legal entity. Journalist and an anti-fascist from Saratov was fined for publishing on his page on the social network of several pages from a banned anti-Semitic books, although his actions were directed against the propaganda of anti-Semitism. follower Jehovah's Witnesses from the village of Golyshmanovo, Tyumen Region, and two more believers from Cherkessk, and along with them the urban community of Jehovah's Witnesses, were fined for distributing banned pamphlets.

Except In addition, in May, the Rostov Regional Court upheld the verdict of the Zheleznodorozhny Court Rostov-on-Don, who fined two followers of Jehovah's Witnesses under Part 2 of Art. 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (organization or conduct public event without filing, in accordance with the established procedure, notification of holding a public event) for 20 thousand rubles for the distribution of brochures with portable stand at the bus station. The court decision explicitly stated that the determining factor in the imposition of a fine was the fact that in the texts of brochures references to website of Jehovah's Witnesses, in our opinion, banned illegally .

In May we became known about two cases of prosecution under Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses for demonstrating Nazi symbols are clearly not in the context of Nazi propaganda. In Novosibirsk, a nationalist was sentenced to a fine for publication in the social network of the image of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko with with a swastika on his shoulder and eating babies. In Alapaevsk, Sverdlovsk region case was initiated under Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses in relation to a local entrepreneur, who made posters for Victory Day, which were posted with the consent of the city administration at two city stands on May 1, 2015. They contained photograph of marching Nazi soldiers, framed with a St. George ribbon and five pointed stars. While the posters were really out of place, the actions of the prosecutor's office seem unlawful to us: swastikas in the outfit The soldiers clearly could not be seen as Nazi propaganda. The prosecutor's office made head of the city representation of elimination of violations of the legislation on countering extremism, in As a result, the head of the city department of culture was fired, and the deputy the head of the administration was reprimanded.

Prohibition and blocking of materials for extremism and other government actions

At the end of May, according to the February decision Kurgan City Court faith in the light of the Qur'an and Sunnah" and several editions of the book of Said bin Ali bin Wahf al-Qahtani "Fortress of the Muslim" (n. 2806). Russian the courts recognized both books as extremist before, and "Krepost Muslim" in early 2015 was rehabilitated among others publications banned in 2012 in Orenburg. We believe that both books are not contain signs of extremism.

In Pervouralsk, the court is considering a claim for recognition extremist book "Selected Hadiths" by Sheikh Muhammad Yusuf Kandehlavi. We do not understand the meaning of the suit of the prosecutor's office of Pervouralsk. Can suggest that the attention of law enforcement agencies was attracted by the compiler collection. Sheikh Muhammad Yusuf Kandehlavi (1917–1965) is indeed one of the ideologists of what is banned in Russia - from our point of view, without proper reason - religious movement "Tablighi Jamaat". However, he is not the author of the texts presented in the collection, which he only selected and sorted by topic. Recall that hadiths are ancient traditions about words and actions. Prophet Muhammad - are sacred texts for Muslims according to authority is second only to the Qur'an. For ancient Islamic texts are characterized by the rejection of polytheism, apostasy, various sins, and people who indulge in this are evaluated extremely negatively. But accuse medieval religious authors of a lack of religious tolerance and tolerance is meaningless. Just as it is pointless to evaluate ancient texts with point of view of modern legislation on extremism.

At the end of May, it became known that the Anapa City the court of the Krasnodar Territory ruled to block the site rublacklist.net Roskomsvoboda project. The reason was that on one of his pages contain instructions that describe ways to bypass the blocking sites. Only that page of the Roskomsvoboda website appears in the decision, on which the instruction is placed, but at the same time it says about the ban of the entire site. The site owners were not notified of the lawsuit and were not given the opportunity to participate in it as an interested party. Creators "Roskomsvoboda" indicate that their website contains only information prohibited in Russia. Information about the means of restoring access to information is not legally prohibited from dissemination, so the decision Anapa city court wrongfully.

In May, it became known that Roskomnadzor sent letters to the leadership of Facebook, Twitter and Google demanding to provide information about users under the law on bloggers (in in particular, about the attendance of accounts), as well as to block pages that fall under operation of " Lugovoy's law ". At the end of the month, at a meeting between representatives of Twitter and Roskomnadzor reached an agreement to remove 53 pages that the Russian department considers "extremist". It is also known that Roskomnadzor specified its requests to the level of specific tweets, and not accounts. Recall that we are opponents of the law on bloggers and the law Lugovoi.

At the end of May, the Crimean Minister of Culture announced that " in order to suppress the facts of distribution of materials of extremist and of a terrorist nature, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Crimea carried out work on the withdrawal from the collections of libraries of publications included in the federal list extremist materials ." From our point of view, the actions of the Crimean authorities were wrong, because the legislation on librarianship is not provides for the possibility of withdrawing literature from the collections. law enforcement authorities were entitled to demand only one or another restriction of access to prohibited materials.

It should also be noted that at the end of May the prosecutor's office of the Kirovsky district of Yekaterinburg withdrew from libraries of the Jewish gymnasium "Or Avner" books of the Tanakh, including the Torah, as well as the books of the Prophets and Scriptures, in order to check them for "the presence extremist content in these books." From our point of view, going to check the Jewish gymnasium, law enforcement agencies should to first find out what kind of literature they can find there discover. And vice versa, in order to get acquainted with the text of the Old Testament, it is not necessary to follow him to a Jewish gymnasium.