Memorial recognized the Astrakhan nationalist Stenin as being persecuted for political reasons

The leader of the "Russian Astrakhan" movement was recognized as persecuted for political reasons.

On June 9, 2016, the Human Rights Center "Memorial" issued a statement recognizing the leader of the "Russian Astrakhan" movement, Igor Stenin, convicted under Part 2 of Art. 280 of the Criminal Code (public calls for extremist activities via the Internet), persecuted for political reasons.

Memorial notes that accusing Stenin of reposting the text is absurd, since it was not a repost, but a comment from another social network user. Human rights activists also believe that the investigation and the court showed " an extreme degree of partiality and bias associated with the political motivation of the criminal case ," which resulted in numerous procedural violations.

Igor Stenin was sentenced to two years in a penal colony on May 16, 2016. He filed an appeal against the verdict, the decision did not come into force, Stenin is under house arrest. The nationalist was found guilty of posting on the social network VKontakte under the pseudonym "Ingvar Stefan" an entry on the war in Ukraine, he was also charged with a comment by another user, which the investigation mistakenly took for a repost.

From our point of view, the short note appearing in the criminal case calling for the destruction of the " Kremlin invaders " cannot be considered a call for extremist activity. The collective image of "Kremlin occupiers", which was used in the past years by disgruntled citizens to the authorities, obviously received an even broader and even less targeted interpretation in connection with the Ukrainian events. It is impossible to perceive this figurative expression as a direct call for reprisals against representatives of a particular social group, and earlier law enforcement agencies did not prosecute citizens for this popular slogan, without attaching special importance to it. If, nevertheless, it is interpreted as an appeal to the Russian authorities, it should be noted that the representatives of the authorities do not form a vulnerable social group that would need special protection in the form of anti-extremist articles of the Criminal Code. In addition, if we perceive this statement as a call for active action, it is obvious that we are talking about actions outside the territory of Russia.

On the whole, we believe that the Ukrainian crisis inevitably provokes many people to extreme statements that are not typical for them at other times, and in this situation it is more expedient not to resort to criminal prosecution even for the harshest statements, if they do not contain the corpus delicti in the clearest and unambiguous form. It should also be noted the unjustified severity of the sentence - two years of a real term.

Earlier, in October 2015, Stenin was wrongfully fined for distributing the video.

Sources

• Memorial recognizes Igor Stenin, a resident of Astrakhan, as being persecuted for political reasons // HRC "Memorial". 2016. June 9.