Misuse of Anti-Extremism in August 2015

The following is our review of the primary and most representative events in the misuse of Russia’s anti-extremist legislation in August 2015.

Criminal Prosecution

In mid-August, it was reported that the Langepas city court (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug – Yugra) has taken up a criminal case against a local resident – a teacher of Arabic – under Part 1 of Article 282 (incitement to hatred or hostility, and humiliation of human dignity on the basis of religious affiliation). He is accused of holding religious meetings, disguised as Arabic language classes, which included reading of banned literature and sermons on the uniqueness of Islam and its superiority over other religions. We would like to note that it is quite natural for believers to regard their religion as the only true one and assert its superiority over the other ones; only calls for illegal actions against followers of other religions merit prosecution (see the Supreme Court ruling of June 28, 2011).

In mid-August the case was opened against the owner of Flamingo Cafe in Nizhny Novgorod, who expelled from his cafe a disabled sister of top model and philanthropist Natalia Vodianova; he was charged with actions aimed at humiliation on the basis of belonging to a social group, committed publicly with violence or threat of violence (Paragraph “a” of Article 282 Part 1). In a rude manner, the cafe owner demanded that Oksana Vodianova and her caregiver leave his establishment and motivated his request by asserting that the woman was frightening other customers; then he ordered his security guards to remove Oksana and her mother, who came to her help. We view this case as inappropriate, since Article 282 of the Criminal Code implies publicity, and the statements by the cafe owner were not made in public – in addition to Vodianova, her caregiver and the owner (and possibly, the staff), there was only one customer. In addition, we believe that a vague concept of a “social group” is hardly applicable as a target of insults in this case (yet another reason to consider adding to the text of Article 282 a list of specific groups in need of protection, including on basis of disability). The incident with Oksana Vodianova, as far as we know, would be best qualified as discrimination and prosecuted either under Article 136 of the Criminal Code (violation of the equality of human and civil rights and freedom) or under Article 5.62 of the Code of Administrative Offences (discrimination).

In August, the Tagansky district court of Moscow began the proceedings in a high-profile case of posting a Ukrainian flag and painting the top star the colors of Ukrainian flag on the spire of a high-rise building on the Kotelnicheskaya Embankment in Moscow. Four base-jumpers, charged under Part 2 of Article 213 and Part 2 of Article 214 (hooliganism and vandalism committed by a group of persons motivated by political and ideological hatred or enmity) have denied their involvement in the action. They also told the court that they were not acquainted with roofer Vladimir Podrezov, and their jump from the skyscraper on the day of the incident was not motivated by desire to offend the feelings of citizens or by political hatred. As you may remember, Ukrainian citizen Pavel Ushivets (a.k.a. Grisha Mustang, Mustang Wanted) claimed responsibility for the action; he has been charged under the same articles in absentia. Vladimir Podrezov, a roofer from Saint Petersburg accused of providing assistance to Ushivets, stated that he had falsely testified against the base-jumpers under pressure from the investigators, and confirmed their non-involvement. Regarding his participation in the action, he said that he had been inside the building with Ushivets, but had not been involved in painting the star and hanging the flag. The prosecution seeks identical real prison terms for all four defendants; the prosecutor asked the court to sentence Vladimir Podrezov and three base-jumpers – Evgeny Korotkov, Alexander Pogrebov and Aleksey Shirokozhukhov – to three years in a penal colony and the fifth defendant – base-jumper Anna Lepyoshkina – to a suspended sentence of three years followed by three years of probation due to her pregnancy. As mentioned previously, we believe that this case was qualified inappropriately. The offenders were allegedly motivated by hatred, but it is not clear against whom this hatred was directed. Moreover, this action should be viewed as a petty rather than severe violation of public order, and considered as an administrative offense under Article 20.1 of the Administrative Code (petty hooliganism). We also would like to note that the investigation failed to provide the court with convincing evidence of their claim that the four base-jumpers had participated in the action.

In August, the verdict under Article 282.2 Part 1 (organizing activities of an extremist organization) was issued against a 50-year woman from Krasnoyarsk, a reader of Said Nursi. She was sentenced to a fine of 10 thousand rubles. The sentence has entered into force. The woman was found guilty of participating in the activities of the banned Nurcular association, reading and discussing the works of Said Nursi, as well as providing financial support for the meetings. We view as inappropriate both the prohibition of books by Turkish theologian Said Nursi, and the ban against Nurcular, which does not even exist in Russia – only individual followers of Nursi, who face unreasonable persecution.

In mid-August, two sentences under Article 205.5 Part 2 (participation in activities of a terrorist organization) were issued in Saint Petersburg in the case of a local cell of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a religious and political organization banned as terrorist in Russia despite having no record of involvement in terrorism. The Leningrad district military court sentenced Kyrgyz citizen Makhamadimin Saliev to five years in a maximum security penal colony. The Moscow district military court, at its visiting session in Saint Petersburg, sentenced Gapur Magomedov, a native of Dagestan, to five years in a penal colony.

Organizations, Materials and Websites Banned as Extremist

In early August, the Supreme Court upheld the March decision of the Krasnodar regional court on recognizing Jehovah's Witnesses community in Abinsk as extremist and its liquidation. The community was recognized as extremist based on the fact that one of its members had faced administrative responsibility for distribution of three prohibited brochures. The organization received a warning about the impermissibility of extremist activity, but, according to the investigation, its members continued to distribute religious literature. It is the third ban known to us that targets a local Jehovah's Witnesses organization “for extremism,” (and the fourth attempt at such a ban). We would like to remind here that we view persecution against Jehovah's Witnesses, including bans against their texts on the grounds of extremism, as inappropriate and consider it religious discrimination.

In mid-August, it was reported that Sebastian Stopper, a German historian of the Second World War Soviet partisan movement at the University of Humboldt in Berlin, appealed to the European Court of Human Rights with a complaint against the decision of the Sovetsky district court of Bryansk, issued in November 2013, which recognized six of his articles, published on LiveJournal.com, as extremist. The articles in question are academic works on the guerrilla movement in the Bryansk Region, equipped with numerous references and citations, including the Soviet archival documents. Stopper also puts into academic circulation materials from German archives (in his own translation into Russian). Presumably, because of these documents, the articles were recognized as extremist. The author’s text contains no evidence of “justification of aggressive, violent acts of German troops”, “belittling significance of the guerrilla military operations in Bryansk” or their negative assessment, contrary to what is stated in the court verdict. In our view, Stopper’s articles (as well as comments to them on livejournal.com) were banned inappropriately.

We also observed several cases of inappropriate blocking of online information. In mid-August, it was announced that Roskomnadzor had added “ISIS Militants Call Muslims from Western Countries to Jihad” video by Euronews news channel, published on YouTube, to the register of banned sites. Both the domain name youtube.com and one of the IP-addresses were entered onto the register, even though the court decision spoke only of banning the text of a comment. This verdict does not make much sense, because blocking comments but not videos on YouTube is not technically feasible; meanwhile restricting access to a video (moreover, to the entire YouTube), because one comment was recognized as extremist, is not appropriate. Likely, the only legitimate course of action for law enforcement agencies would be to demand the removal of the dangerous content from the resource administrators.

In late August, Roskomnadzor, on the basis of prior court decisions, added to the Unified Register of Banned Websites the text of the fourth volume of a multivolume set of interpretations of the Koran, Light of the Holy Qur'an, posted on the website alhassanain.org, and the entire section of books “about Ramadan and Ramazan” (spelling used in the Register) from islam-book.info website (this section of islam-book.info is actually titled “Ramadan, the Fast”). Islam-book.info is a large Internet library, serving educational purposes, which contains various materials about Islam. Even discovery of some information with signs of extremism in the large section dedicated to the fast does not justify blocking the entire section and denying users access to an array of legitimate materials. As we stated before, we believe that in such cases the restrictions should pertain to webpages with specific materials. We see no grounds for blocking the fourth volume of the Light of the Holy Qur'an.