Russophobia business

This is the second case of persecution for the Russophobia of the Post, and also in Barnaul. The first case for this publication was instituted against the opposition activist Andrei Teslenko - however, only under Art. 282. Information about the establishment of the case on Teslenko appeared in April 2014, the activist was conducted, computers were seized, he was interrogated, then a search was at work with Teslenko. After that, the activist and his family moved to the territory of Ukraine, where he received a political asylum.

*Andrey Teslenko. Frame of the video "Open Russia"*

"Russophobia post" was included in the federal list of extremist materials. According to the Owl's information and analytical center, which is monitoring the persecution on charges of extremist activity (including unlawful), this text, “inspired by Ukrainian events, was written extremely sharply and was clearly anti-Russian (ethnic sense) orientation”. The text contains, in particular, a call to the Ukrainians “deprive the Rusnya of Citizenship”, as in the Baltic states.

However, Owl experts consider the persecution for the recovery of this text controversial. Three arguments. “Firstly,” the center says, “the post did not have a very large audience,“ however, experts admit that for a law enforcer this is not an argument at all: most sentences are issued for Internet publications that have not gained wide popularity. The second consideration is that “the post was completely carriage from another page”, although this argument is not very strong, because if the republic did not express his attitude to the material that reposted, then from this it may follow that he is agreed with the idea of the text. The third argument is most convincing: it is not clear to the Owls experts, “whether the calls for discrimination should be persecuted if they were heard in Russia, but are addressed to the authorities of another country and not Russian citizens are invited to discriminate against.”

In the video opened by the “open Russia” on the persecution of Barnaul activists, Teslenko notes that there were many reposts of this text, but they “chose” precisely under the Chassis, since “it was known” as a participant in the protest movement. In 2012, Teslenko and Under Otchasov ran to the Barnaul City Duma from the RPR-Parnas-the list was then headed by Vladimir Ryzhkov (the party scored a little more than five percent of the vote, and one candidate from the list went to the City Duma). In September 2014, under Omph. was already running to the parliament of the neighboring region, the State Assembly-El-Curultai of the Republic of Altai, but this time the party gained less than two percent.

Pochsov was detained back in April 2014. In the video of “Open Russia”, he said that unknown people put him in the car and to the question where they were being taken, answered: “Do not be afraid, not in the forest.” At first, he was in the status of a witness, but in August, during the interrogation, he was informed that he was a suspect, and the case was instituted in March. Suphorov is under the subscription about the wizard. In September, it became known that it was included in the list of existing terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring, as a result of which his bank accounts were blocked.

The activist believes that the case is fabricated, and the reason for the persecution is his activity, not only as an activist of the opposition party, but primarily as an observer in the elections. He spoke about this in court. In a conversation with the OVD-Info, he emphasized that in the Altai Territory, opposition activists are generally subjected to constant pressure.

“Many who participated in the elections as candidates or active observers paid for the fact that they could not get a job, because they only arrange how the FSB officers come and put pressure on the managers and they dismiss them,” the activist says. - My two friends were expelled from graduate school - so they still have not recovered. I know that they put pressure on the teachers from the university, but after that they moved away from business, do not appear anywhere else, they are afraid to say excess word. The same pressure was on entrepreneurs. ” However, he notes that under the establishment of affairs in most cases does not reach: “Simply, apparently, people are doing some kind of oral warning, and they are now afraid to manifest themselves-even elementary to come to the elections and observe.”

The position of the accused and his lawyer in court lies in the fact that he himself did not publish on his “Russophobia post” page. Lawyer Olga Kobeleva emphasizes that the investigation was not able to prove either authorship or place where the Internet entrance was committed for the recovery of the post, nor the exact time when it was completed. Podchasov himself states that anyone could place information on his page if the login and password have been preserved in the browser, since he did not vomit from someone else's computer. The accusation in response claims that, according to representatives of the VKontakte social network, the pages did not complain at the hack and there was no evidence of hacking his page. However, the VKontakte administration also noted that the most discussed entry on the page of Podchasov is currently not and there are no ways to prove that it was there. The accusation is based on the testimony of witnesses who read the text.

Even at the investigation stage, the lawyer filed a motion to terminate the persecution of Podchasov, since the motives of his actions were not investigated and not proved and there is no evidence of direct intent in exciting hatred. However, this was followed by the response of the investigator Vitaly Tyshkevich, who was conducting the case of Podchasov, that the guilt of the under investigation was proven, while the investigator simply re -set out the text of the prosecution and the expert’s conclusion that analyzed the text.

The lawyer continued to insist that the case should be terminated, and one of the main arguments was that Podchasov was accused under two articles of the Criminal Code for the same thing. Indeed, in the indictment of the justification of the charges under Art. 280 and Art. 282 are absolutely identical.

A fragment of the indictment. There is a full text at the disposal

At a preliminary hearing in the Leninsky District Court in February 2015, this was even embarrassed by judge Irina Keish. According to Altapress, she noted in the indictment of violation of the requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure - both in terms of the identical description of crimes for different articles, and in the absence of indicating the exact place of the crime, the funds used and even specific actions of the accused. She stated that such an abundance of violations in the indictment “excludes the decision of the decision” in the case. However, this did not prevent the court instead of returning the case to the prosecutor’s office, nevertheless, to proceed with his consideration.

According to Podchasov, the meetings took place calmly. Attention to the process is small. “The lawyer does not show special initiative, does not give comments on the media and recommends that I do the same before the sentence,” the activist says. The defense introduced only one witness to the court - a computer expert. Among the witnesses of the accusations in court were the parents of Podchasov and his acquaintances - in particular, because the investigation listened to the telephone conversations of Podchasov, from which, according to the prosecution, it should have been admitted that he made a repost (he said in response to the court that he spoke only in conversations with relatives and acquaintances of what he was accused of). But the main witnesses, according to the activist, who collaborated with the investigation, the students of the Altai Economic College V. Zhiganov and K. Buyankin: “They allegedly came home in the evening, entered the Internet, accidentally got to my page, accidentally read this text, were very offended, and the next day the investigator came to them, began to ask for the fact that we relate to the fact that we relate to our extremism in Russia It is growing, the two of them volunteered to help the investigation, said that recently they saw such a text, they are very condemned, ”says Under Otchasov. The testimony of Zhiganov and Buyankina in the case completely coincide (even the indictment says that Zhiganov’s testimony is similar to the testimony of Buyankina). The lawyer in the debate noted that among the witnesses of the accusations were people who did not hide the negative attitude towards Podchasov (for example, Svetlana Pilnikova, the chairman of the PEC, on which Pozhasov was an observer), which means they could stipulate him.

Popchasov considered that one denial of involvement in the publication of the text is not enough, and during the process he proved that the text itself does not contain signs of extremism and national enmity. In particular, he stated that by “Rusnya” in the text, not ethnic Russians, but citizens of Russia, is not meant, and that the phrase on “deprivation of Russian citizenship” is a call to the ban on dual citizenship for Russians in Ukraine.

After that, the court sent the text to a second linguistic examination, the author of which did not agree with the position of Podchasov. True, the argument that the word “Rusnya” can be meant only “Russians” as the “East Slavic people, which constituted the main population of Russia,” the following rather dubious consideration was given:

“In the Russian language, there is also an adjective“ Russian ”, expressing the following significance:“ 2. Related to the Russian people, to its language, national character, lifestyle, culture, as well as to Russia, its territory, internal structure, history; such as in Russians, as in Russia. ” [Ozhegov, Shvedova 1999]. This adjective is not a motivating word for the word “Rusnya”, since it does not correspond to word -formation models existing in the Russian language, therefore, the meaning of this word “related to Russia, its territory, internal structure, history” is not included in the structure of the meaning of the word “Rusnya” ”.

When Podchansov allowed himself to disagree with the results of a linguistic examination, the prosecutor said that since the accused argues with linguists experts, speaks out on historical topics, and also participates in observant activities in the elections, having no linguistic, nor historical or legal education, he should undergo a psychological and psychiatric examination. Another basis for sending him for examination was the words of the Chairman of the PEC Pilnikova that he behaved inadequately during the observation in the elections in the election - he expressed requirements “not related to his powers”. The court agreed with the prosecutor. According to the results of the examination, the activist was recognized as sane (the psychologist, during a conversation with the activist, paid the most attention to the question of what history is, as well as the activities of Alexei Navalny).

During the debate, the prosecutor asked for the sentence to three years in prison with a trial period of four years and to assign an additional obligation to him - "to appear once a month to the body correcting the conditionally convicted person." In addition, she asked the court for three years to deprive Podchasov’s right to engage in activities related to the work of election commissions. Under Otchasov noted that the accusation thereby actually admits that his pursuit was his activity as an observer. The lawyer emphasized that many witnesses pointed to the political views of Podchasov, so, in fact, he was held accountable for disagreements with the policy of the state.

The verdict in the case of Podchasov is expected on July 13.

According to Andrei Teslenko, the Altai Territory has the best indicators in Russia to combat Internet extremism. Indeed, reports of persecution for extremist publications on the Internet in this region appear regularly . Including criminal prosecution - in May, by the age of three, activist Dmitry Bychkov was conventionally sentenced, who transferred a photograph of the cartridge on the VKontakte network with a comment that “terror should become a fashion among the wide layers of the population.”

More attention to networks

In general, the number of criminal cases initiated for extremism on the Internet has been growing recently. The Owl Center in the reports during 2015 mentions more than ten criminal cases, unlawfully stated under extremist articles (not counting the cases of Teslenko and Podchasov). Among them, six are somehow connected with the events in Ukraine. For calls for extremism and violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, Daria Polyudova, one of the organizers of the “march for the federalization of the Kuban”, invented by analogy with the idea of federalization of Ukraine, is persecuted. Another Kuban activist, Sergey Titarenko, expects a court in the case of calls for extremism expressed in a network publication in the form of a news report that the deputy head of the Dnipropetrovsk administration, Boris Filatov, allegedly offers a reward for the elimination of the Russian president. Calls to violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation and the excitement of hatred on national grounds are charged with the chairman of the Tatar Public Center Rafis Kashapov, who published materials condemning events in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine. At the end of July, a court hearing should take place in the case of the Chuvash activist Dmitry Semenov, accused of extremism for publishing the image of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the inscription “Death of the Russian Gadin”: according to the activist , the picture was attached to the quote from the post of journalist Matvey Ganapolsky, and the general context was associated with the ostentatious concern about Russian -speaking population of Ukraine. In Chelyabinsk, the case of the activist of the “Civil Movement of the Southern Urals” Konstantin Zharinov has not been completed: the reason for the pursuit of the article on calls for extremist activity was the recovery of the propaganda text of the “Right Sector”, although Zharynov did not solidarize with calls contained in the text on the VKontakte network. On July 13, on the same day with Podchassov, a school teacher from the Oryol region Alexander Fereshev should hear the verdict in his case, accused of initiating hatred on national grounds for publishing a poem in support of Ukrainians written after the events in Crimea in the spring of 2014.