Unlawful anti-extremism in March 2016

We we publish an overview of the main and most significant events in the field misuse of anti-extremist legislation in Russia in March 2016 of the year.

Rulemaking

IN end of March, member of the Federation Council Viktor Ozerov submitted to the State Duma bill on endowing regional prosecutors with powers to refer requirements to Roskomnadzor on the need blocking content on the internet by law Lugovoy" . Currently, this right is only the Attorney General. Earlier during speeches in the Federation Council Deputy Head of the Main Directorate for countering extremism Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Vladimir Makarov supported the initiative Ozerov, and also spoke in favor of according to Lugovoy's law, it was possible to block and " clearly extremist materials, but without conscription to extremism ." We believe that, given the vague wording of legislation and numerous cases of his illegal application, if these plans should expect a sharp increase the number of abuses. We perform for judicial blocking mechanisms materials with extremist statements.

In the middle March it became known that Andrey Sabinin, lawyer for Stavropol blogger Viktor Krasnov, who allowed himself atheistic comments on social networks, submitted to Constitutional Court complaint against the provisions Art. 148 of the Criminal Code relating to insult feelings of believers. The complaint refers to legal uncertainty associated with the wording of part 1 of the article, and on that the fact that this wording is excessively limits what is guaranteed by the Constitution the right to freedom of speech. In Sabinin's complaint, In particular, it is stated that the legislation the concept of insult is not disclosed feelings of believers and thus creates opportunity for prosecution for atheistic statements, because such may be offensive to believers. Sabinin refers to resolution N11 plenum of the Supreme Court of June 28, 2011 "On the judicial practice in criminal cases about crimes extremist," which states that criticism of political or religious organizations itself itself cannot be regarded as arousal action hatred or enmity. human rights activists also note the redundancy of the article, because it intersects in the formulations and scope from Art. 282 UK (inciting hatred) and Art. 213 UK (hooliganism), and there is ambiguity with qualification of actions. It is no coincidence that the article this one still applies relatively rarely. We note that on the same days the Special United Nations Rapporteur on Freedom religion and belief Heiner Bielefeldt submitted to the Human Rights Council UN Geneva report on the application of laws about blasphemy in various countries of the world and spoke in favor of their universal abolition. According to Bielefeldt, such laws restrict freedom of speech and promote manifestations of hatred and intolerance on religious grounds. As a result of their applications suffer primarily religious minorities.

Criminal the pursuit

22 Martha Donetsk city court of Rostov region recognized the Ukrainian pilot Hope Savchenko guilty, including, according to paragraphs. "a, e, f, l" part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code (murder two or more persons, committed by generally dangerous in a manner committed by a group of persons, by a group of persons by prior agreement or an organized group, based on hatred or enmity towards any social group). IN indictment social a group that hates was guided by Savchenko, was defined as " civil population of the Luhansk region (Ukraine), associated   with by their refusal to recognize the legitimacy the current government in Ukraine and the desire create a separate territorial education - Luhansk People's republic ." The court agreed with this qualification deeds of Savchenko, but to us it appears to be unlawful. Actions, who were charged with Savchenko, happened in the context of military operations. They could would be qualified only as war crime to which the provisions of Section VII of the Criminal Code do not apply, relating to peacetime conditions. By constructing an arbitrary social group, the way it's done in the indictment, any war crime directed against civilians, becomes a hate crime that's not true basically. This shows once again that the vague notion of a social group is a source of abuse and should be excluded from anti-extremist articles.

IN March Zavolzhsky Court of Tver began deal with the merits of a criminal the case of Andrei Bubeev. The case of public calls for extremism (part 2 of article 280 of the Criminal Code) and public calls for implementation actions aimed at violating territorial integrity of the Russian Federation (part 2 of Art. 280.1 of the Criminal Code) was initiated against Bubeev last September, and August he was already convicted on Part 1 Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (inciting a national hatred) and part 1 of Art. 222 of the Criminal Code (illegal acquisition and possession of weapons). All accusations against Bubeev (both old and new ones) are based on reposts on his page in the social network "VKontakte". In particular, he is accused of publishing articles by Boris Stomakhin "CRIMEA IS THIS UKRAINE!", which contains quite a definite call for aggressive war against Russia. In addition, Bubeev the publication of the drawing is imputed, on in which the hand squeezes toothpaste from a tube, with the inscription "Squeeze out of yourself Russia" and an accompanying inscription that the only form of protest should be " active " destruction" Russia, " how what the Chechens did in their time, for example" . In general, entries on Bubeev's page have aggressive character. Wrongful We consider the charge under Art. 280.1, because we believe that citizens have the right to express one's opinion openly regarding joining Russia new territory.

IN At the beginning of March, a criminal case on Part 2 Art. 205.2 of the Criminal Code (public calls for terrorist activities or public justification terrorism) against blogger Alexey Kungurov, regular publisher contributor "Algorithm", a member of the Committee of 25 January". According to Kungurov himself, it is about the article "Who is really being bombed Putin's falcons". According to the statement blogger, the claims are related to his assertion that Russia does not bombing of territories of the "Islamic state", but actually helps to him. The article provides an analysis of the current situation in the Middle East. calls to terrorism, we in this text do not discovered. However, we may have incomplete information, and Kungurov other publications are also blamed.

IN Minusinsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory in March sentence was pronounced in the case of inciting national hatred (part 1 of article 282 of the Criminal Code) and the rehabilitation of Nazism, expressed in the desecration of symbols military glory of Russia (part 3 of article 354.1 of the Criminal Code). The case was considered in a special order. Local resident G. Nazimov pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 months in prison work with deduction of 10% of earnings in income states. He was accused of being May 2015, he posted on his page in the social network "VKontakte" image with a caption that offends St. George ribbon as a symbol of the military glory, and on May 23, 2015 openly called on his page to the xenophobic violence and published an appropriate video. We have no reason to doubt in the sentence handed down to Nazimov under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code, but the charge under Art. 354.1 seems to us not enough justified. According to the investigation, the post with an insult to the St. George ribbon was an image post quilted jackets and images of St. George tapes with a comment that " contained profanity and   expressions negative attitude towards St. George ribbon as a symbol of Russia's military glory (symbol of Victory in the Great Patriotic war) ". However, if in the posts of the accused St. George's Ribbon figured as symbol of opposition in the southeast Ukraine, used by one of the parties, it should be viewed as such not as "character military glory and victory in the Great Patriotic War " and the charge under Art. 354.1 cannot be counted quite legitimate.

IN mid-March in Dagestan was initiated criminal case under Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code (organization activity of an extremist organization) on the organization of the banned cell religious association "Nurcular" against Artur Kultuev and Ziyavdin Dapaev, who was already convicted in 2011 By Part 1 Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code and sentenced to three years suspended sentence for studying Turkish theologian Said Nursi. Recall that we consider it illegal prohibition of the "Nurcular" association, which did not exist in Russia at all: there are only individual believers who face persecution for study of Nursi books that do not represent no danger.

IN end of the month Moscow District Military court at offsite hearings in St. Petersburg issued two sentences under Part 1 of Art. 205.5 (organization of terrorist activity organizations) - in relation to Muslims Sergei Yablokov and Roman Ivanov. Yablokov was sentenced to 12.5 years colony and restriction of freedom for 1 year, Ivanov - to 13 years and 4 months in prison strict regime colonies. According to investigations and courts, until 2014 they headed Petersburg cell of Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir party, attracted people into it, held meetings and disseminated information about this organizations. On the cell case earlier two Muslims have already been convicted, five are under investigation. Recall that we consider it illegal accusing the followers of Hizb ut-Tahrir" in terrorism only on basis of their party activities (holding meetings, reading literature, and so on.).

IN Tatarstan after a series of searches that took place from 18 to 22 March in Kazan, Naberezhnye Chelny and Almetievsk on suspicion of involvement to the activities of "Hizb ut-Tahrir" on Art. 205.5 of the Criminal Code, ten criminal cases against 17 people, 13 of them placed in custody or house arrest for two months.

IN Nizhnevartovsk case under Part 2 of Art. 205.5 of the Criminal Code and Part 1 of Art. 282 UK against a local resident who is accused in involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir and dissemination of organizational materials. In addition, according to the investigation, in 2014 year he published on his page "VKontakte" video materials, aimed at "shaping negative, hostile and hostile relationship with law enforcement bodies, representatives of Christianity and the Christian religion in general . Accused placed into custody. Recall that we believe that law enforcement officers are not among the vulnerable social groups requiring protection in the form anti-extremist legislation.

Administrative the pursuit

IN March we learned that under Art. 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses for illegal distribution prohibited materials or possession such for the purpose of distribution was two were charged individuals and two legal entities. IN city ​​of Dyurtyuli (Bashkortostan) court suspended for 20 days shop activity religious paraphernalia and fined its director for 3 thousand rubles for that the store found two muslim religious brochures, groundlessly recognized as extremist (The decision was made at the end of January). Ulyanovsk penal colony IK-10 was fined 100 thousand rubles for the fact that in the mosque located on its territories, two illegally banned brochures. A resident of Volzhsk (Mari El) was fined 1,000 rubles for publishing on VKontakte for no reason banned video "Miracles of the Quran". Prokhladnensky District Court Kabardino-Balkarian Republic fined the local Witness congregation Jehovah and gave her a warning about inadmissibility of extremist activities for the dissemination of three brochures, two of which were recognized extremist wrongfully, and the third and was not banned at all.

According to Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses for display of Nazi symbols without propaganda intent in March, to our knowledge, were illegal two were prosecuted person. In Chita for one and a half activist was fined thousands of rubles interregional trade union "Working association" Nikolai Konovalov, except In addition, his page was blocked in one of the social networks. Konovalov posted on his page in the social network cartoons of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Peter Poroshenko, they were in the pictures depicted with a swastika on the sleeves. In addition, he posted photos soldiers of the Ukrainian battalion "Azov", as well as antique Christmas toys times of the Third Reich. Konovalov intends appeal the court's decision. Cheboksary Semyon Kochkin was prosecuted for reposting a post from the official page young Yekaterinburg singer, schoolgirl Elizaveta Gyrdymova, famous under the pseudonym "Coin" in social networks "VKontakte". The recording consisted from a remix of one of the artist's songs and a collage on the theme of her work with using the girl's image Nazi uniform with armband with a swastika, which is made in the style manga. From our point of view, considering context posting this image was not intended to promote Nazism.

According to part 1 Art. 6.17 of the Criminal Code (violation established distribution requirements information products among children, containing information that causes harm to their health and (or) development) due to poor performance of content filters on school computers to director was held responsible Uysk elementary general education schools in the Chelyabinsk region. We believe, that content filtering programs, generally ineffective and school personnel should not be held responsible for it's a responsibility. According to part 2 of Art. 6.17 (non-use the person who organizes access to the distributed through information and telecommunication networks (including the Internet) information in places accessible to children, administrative and organizational measures, technical, software and hardware means of protecting children from information, harmful to their health and development) was held accountable administration of four cafes and one transport company in Saratov, and also the owner of a confectionery in Tyumen (she was fined 5 thousand rubles). occasion served the fact that cafes and Saratov buses of one of the routes provided Wi-Fi sharing without content filters. We oppose the involvement responsibility for the absence content filtering of the cafe administration, Internet cafes, hotels and other similar establishments, since they are not designed only for children (supervised by carried out by parents), but also on adults users whose rights should not be limited. This is also true for attitude towards company management, providing public services transport.

At first March Syktyvkar City Court dismissed the appeal online editions "7x7" for a fine, superimposed on the publication in mid-January Justice of the Peace of Kutuzovsky Court area of ​​the city. The publication was attracted to administrative responsibility recently introduced Part 4 of Art. 13.15 Administrative Code (public desecration of symbols of the military glory of Russia, committed with the use of mass media and (or) networks "Internet") and fined 200 thousand rubles. occasion was the publication of an interview with a blogger Ilya Varlamov. Varlamov was asked questions from the Meduza test, one of which was dedicated to folk the name of the memorial "Eternal Flame" in Syktyvkar. Expert Council regional department of Roskomnadzor decided that the mention of this name falls under Art. 13.15 Administrative Code, after which The agency went to court. Both judicial meetings were held without representatives editions. We believe that mention ironic folk name of the memorial, that only makes fun of the appearance sculptural group, is not desecration of the symbol of military glory, and harassment of "7x7" is illegal. This edition has previously been a victim of wrongdoing, from our point of view view, application of Art. 13.15 Administrative Code: in October 2015 he was fined for illustration for the news of the desecration Jewish cultural center.