Karelia: Vadim Shtepa arrested for a day

Karelian publicist Vadim Shtepa has been sentenced to administrative arrest for publicly displaying Nazi and extremist symbols.

On December 4, 2015, the city court of Petrozavodsk sentenced Karelian blogger and journalist Vadim Shtepa to administrative arrest for one day under Article 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (public demonstration of symbols of extremist organizations).

The Karelian blogger was detained and taken to court by employees of the "E" Center. When making a decision, the judge took into account the fact that this is a repeated violation. Shtepa asked not to arrest him, but only to fine him, because he was going to go on a business trip abroad.

The reason was that Shtepa did not comply with the previous court decision and did not remove from his pages on the social network a photograph of a World War II tank made in Finland with a hakaristi symbol reminiscent of the Nazi swastika (which is still used by the Finnish army), as well as a photograph " business cards of Yarosh" and an illustrated publication in which he compared the historical Karelian flag with the flag of the "Right Sector". A photograph of a historical monument, which is a World War II tank, obviously does not aim to promote Nazism. In our opinion, the propaganda goals of the publications of the symbols of the "Right Sector" made by Shtepa are also doubtful.

The court also found out that Shtepa posted on Facebook an image of a 19th-century Vologda tablecloth with a sun symbol reminiscent of Nazi symbols, and a photograph of a black boy with the same symbols, and wrote "Probably they will put me in jail for this." Shtepa explained to the court that he did not know that Facebook posts were subject to Russian law and that the post was made in an "ironic vein". From our point of view, such an image, even if it has a comic character, can be regarded as propaganda.

At the end of the meeting, Shtepa deleted both of his social media accounts.

Sources

• URGENT: Court arrests blogger Shtepa for Nazi symbols // Capital on Onego. 2015. December 4th.