Chita communist fined for displaying Nazi symbols

In Chita, a court sentenced a trade union activist to a fine for publishing caricatures of Erdogan and Poroshenko in Nazi uniform.

On March 16, 2016, it became known that the Central District Court of Chita imposed a fine of one and a half thousand rubles under Art. 20.3 of the Administrative Code (propaganda and demonstration of Nazi symbols) of Nikolai Konovalov, an activist of the interregional trade union "Workers' Association", and also ordered to block his page on one of the social networks.

Konovalov posted caricatures of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Petro Poroshenko on his social network page; in the pictures they were depicted with a swastika on their sleeves. In addition, he published photographs of soldiers of the Ukrainian Azov battalion, as well as antique Christmas tree decorations from the time of the Third Reich. Konovalov intends to appeal the court's decision. “With these pictures I did not promote Nazism, but criticized the leadership of Turkey and Ukraine. I am a communist, although I am not a member of any party, and accusing me of supporting Nazism is absurd,” the activist told the TASS agency.

Obviously, in this case, the demonstration of Nazi symbols was not aimed at promoting Nazism. Although Russian legislation allows punishment for any demonstration of Nazi symbols without taking into account the context of its use, we consider such prosecution to be unlawful.

Sources

• A Chita communist was fined for promoting Nazi symbols in cartoons of Poroshenko and Erdogan // NEWSru.com. March 2016.