Anti-xenophobic essay declared extremist

A court in St. Petersburg recognized an essay on the attitude towards migrants published on the Snob website as extremist material.

On June 5, 2015, it became known that on May 5, 2015, the Pushkinsky District Court Petersburg recognized the essay of the writer Evgeny as extremist material Babushkin "Charlie Chaplin - black ... th. On the attitude towards migrants", published on the Snob website on October 17, 2013. The decision has entered into force.

The court agreed with the conclusions of the examination carried out by AOU VPO Leningrad State University named after A.S. Pushkin. In addition to the predictably noted word denoting "a disparaging designation of a person of southern nationality (Caucasian or Central Asian) ", the experts found in the text " a statement containing a negative assessment and expressing a negative attitude towards traditional social values; this statement is expressed in the form of personal opinion and subjective evaluative judgments: "Dirty Italians, smelly Poles and Jews who overate children occupied American cities" " and made the following conclusion: " The text contains indirect indications of inciting citizens to action; statements containing an offensive characterization and a negative emotional assessment, a negative attitude are given in the form non-categorical judgments ."

In our opinion, such a decision of the court is unlawful. Text Babushkina is an artistic and journalistic work, directed against xenophobic petty-bourgeois stereotypes, everyday xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment. Of course, the author allowed some stylistic distortions, which, apparently, is inevitable in a literary text of this genre. Basic the pathos of the essay, however, lies in the affirmation of the equality of people of any ethnic origin and the need for respect and humane treatment.

However, we consider it necessary to point out that the use of pejorative vocabulary, especially in the title, may look like unethical and end up being rather harmful to the general atmosphere in domestic media, regardless of the intentions of the author.

Sources

• Post in the "Snob" community // Facebook. 2015. June 4.
• Decision in case 2-3346/2015 ~ M-1627/2015 // Rosjustice. May 5, 2015
• Charlie Chaplin is an extremist. About hate speech // Snob. 2015. June 5.