A collection of materials from the conference “The Practice of Application of the Law on Combating Extremist Activities” has been published.

In June 2016, a collection of materials from the conference "The practice of applying the law on countering extremist activity" was published, which took place on January 28, 2016 in Moscow with the support of the Sikorsky Interregional Forensic Examination Bureau and the Federal Agency for Nationalities Affairs.

Conference participant A. A. Naida, a lawyer at the Kazakov and Partners Law Office, spoke about the uncertainty of the concepts of the law on countering extremist activity, the problems of its application, the shortcomings of the ban on recognizing sacred texts of four world religions as extremist. She also called for a change in the focus of the law, " declaring through it support for national integrity " and emphasizing " the importance of each religion ."

Expert psychologist A. V. Metelev and lawyer M. S. Belokovylsky noted the scope for a broad interpretation of extremism, which gives the law; unprofessionalism of experts; ignoring the proof of intent by investigative and judicial practice; failure to take into account the individual psychological characteristics of the personality of the defendants and the motives for their dissemination of extremist materials. The authors of the article advocated the decriminalization of Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code.

Lawyer A. R. Sultanov spoke about the problems of interaction between the investigation and specialists who prepare opinions on extremist criminal cases, and expressed the hope that tolerance-oriented experts would appear in Russia. A.I. Petrenko, an expert psychologist, also criticized the quality of such conclusions and gave a number of examples of experts' conclusions that were not scientifically substantiated. Yu. L. Ershov, lawyer of the Slavic Legal Center, also criticized the expert opinions.

Chairman of the Moscow Public Council of Civil Society V. V. Obrezha shared his experience related to the recognition of his own work as extremist, and stated that the practice of applying anti-extremist legislation indicates that " liberal jurisdiction has discarded as unnecessary its own principles of protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms not to mention democracy ."

The collection also contains an explanatory note on anti-extremist legislation , compiled by the director of the SOVA center, A. M. Verkhovsky.

As a result of the conference, a resolution was drawn up addressed to the State Duma, the Supreme Court, the Investigative Committee, the Prosecutor General's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with proposals for reforming anti-extremist legislation and adjusting law enforcement practice.

The full text of the collection is available here .