Unlawful anti-extremism in June 2016

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

Rulemaking

In June, the State Duma of the current composition completed its work by passing three important bills before the holidays, concerning, among other things, countering extremism.

The main one is "anti-terrorist package" of two bills prepared jointly by both Houses and approved by both by the end of the month, although with very significant changes. A lot has been written about him, including by us , so we confine ourselves to a brief summary. This the package adds almost nothing to the real possibilities of protecting the public security, but it significantly infringes on fundamental human rights and adopted, it seems, primarily with the aim of demonstrating determination in "combating terrorism and extremism". "Package" also creates new tools for selective pressure on online campaigns, religious associations and individuals. As of July 4, 2016, the "package" is still awaiting presidential signature.

"Package" introduces such unprecedented measures such as long-term storage of electronic communications data due to their providers for the convenience of law enforcement, criminal liability for failure to report a number of crimes, expands criminal liability adolescents from 14 to 16 years of age, without any reasonable grounds, increases the punishment for articles relating to anti-terrorist and anti-extremist, introduces extremely carelessly worded restrictions on missionary activity (previous for a decade and a half they were rejected by all branches of government), etc.

On June 24, 2016, the President signed into law the regulation of news aggregators on the Internet. News aggregators with audience of more than a million people a day should belong only to Russian natural or legal persons and should somehow avoid "dissemination of materials containing public calls for the implementation of terrorist activities or publicly justifying terrorism, other extremist materials" , as well as materials aimed at "discredit a citizen or certain categories of citizens on the grounds of sex, age, race or nationality, language, attitude to religion, professions, places of residence and work, as well as in connection with their political beliefs" . However, the aggregator is obviously exempt from sanctions for verbatim distribution of registered media materials. Which apparently should induce to exclude other news sources from aggregators. The aggregator must remove news on a motivated request Roskomnadzor, and the refusal to do this entails liability under the new Art. 19.7.10-1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses. For legal entities, this means a fine of up to a million rubles if the first and up to three million in case of repeated violation.

The day before, the President signed the law "On fundamentals of the crime prevention system in the Russian Federation". This the law, in essence, summarizes the established practices of such prevention, but it aroused certain suspicions by introducing (or returning) to the legal terminology of vague expressions like "antisocial behavior". In itself, preventive accounting or participation of various kinds of community groups in crime prevention are not objectionable, but one may fear that that the law will be understood by law enforcement agencies as a signal to "excessively intensive" prevention that violates the rights of citizens, as can be seen in Dagestan. In addition, various registers of citizens focused on prevention tend in our system to be transformed from preventive tools into repressive ones, as happened in the 2000s with system by the Surveillance Control , and then with the Rosfinmonitoring registry .

We can also note two bills bearing, as well as the "anti-terrorist package", clearly pre-election character, but hardly having a future. Deputies from the Liberal Democratic Party proposed to abolish Art. 282 of the Criminal Code , and the deputy from "Fair Russia" - introduce a new article on " discrediting the Russian Federation ".

Criminal prosecution

Kyiv District Court of Simferopol in June sentenced citizen of Ukraine Andriy Kolomiyets to 10 years in prison in a colony strict regime. Kolomiets was found guilty of crimes provided h. 3 Article. 30, paras. "a", "b", "e", "l" part 2 of Art. 105 (attempted murder of two persons in connection with the performance of their official activities, committed in a generally dangerous way, according to motives of political and ideological hatred) and Part 2 of Art. 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (illegal acquisition, storage and transportation without the purpose of sale of parts of plants containing narcotic drugs, on a large scale). The court found Kolomiets guilty of that, being a member of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which in Russia recognized as extremist, during the riots on the Maidan in Kyiv in January 2014 made an attempt on the life of two employees of the Crimean special forces Berkut, throwing Molotov cocktails at them. Besides, in In 2015, in Kabardino-Balkaria, he carried out storage and transportation narcotic plant on a large scale. From our point of view, the verdict Kolomiets under Art. 105 of the Criminal Code is illegal. If he really threw bottles of incendiary mixture on the territory of Ukraine, then Ukraine could initiate against him a criminal case and apply to the Russian authorities with a demand contribute to the investigation. Acting on their own initiative, Russian law enforcement violated the rules for determining jurisdiction.

In June, Vladimir Luzgin, a resident of Perm, who supports ideas of Ukrainian nationalism, was convicted under Part 1 of Art. 354.1 of the Criminal Code (negation facts established by the verdict of the International Military Tribunal for trial and punishment of the main war criminals of the European Axis countries, approval crimes established by the said verdict, as well as the spread deliberately false information about the activities of the USSR during the Second World War, committed publicly) for the republication on your page in the social network "VKontakte" article "15 facts about Bandera, or what the Kremlin is silent about." The Perm regional court sentenced Luzgin to a fine of 200 thousand rubles. The court considered that the article contains deliberately false facts about a joint attack USSR and Germany to Poland on September 1, 1939 and unleashing these states of World War II. The court held these allegations to be false. because they are not reflected in the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal. From our point view, the republication, among other things, contains a free interpretation of the essence the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, as well as a number of controversial claims about episodes of the history of the Bandera movement. However, we believe that the interpretation ignorance, incorrect presentation, even deliberate distortion of historical facts is not should give rise to criminal prosecution, unless they are accompanied by appeals that incite hatred and represent a direct danger today. Therefore, we opposed the adoption Art. 354.1 of the Criminal Code , the wording of which (in particular about dissemination of "false information about the activities of the USSR during the Second World wars") allow you to punish historical discussion.

At the end of June in the Proletarsky District Court of Tver The trial began in the case of Shamil Kazakov, who is accused of inciting hatred to the social group "employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Tver region" (part 1 st. 282 of the Criminal Code) and insulting a representative of the authorities (Article 319 of the Criminal Code). This was reported lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina. Kazakov, who has a law degree, received refusal to hire a district police officer. During a conversation with head of the personnel department of the city administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he filmed covert camera. Video recording of the conversation, from which it follows that in Tver they allegedly do not take to the police "Caucasians, Chechens, Dagestanis, Tatars and Muslims", Kazakov published on the Internet. After that, it was brought against him criminal case, and on the fact of posting comments on this video. Kazakov is under house arrest. We have read the text that accompanied the mentioned video, widely circulated in social networks, was not found in there are no calls for aggressive action. We also believe that the police are not among the vulnerable groups requiring protection in the form of anti-extremist legislation, but the unclear concept of a social group should be excluded from anti-extremist articles as a source numerous abuses.

In the Kirov region in June, a verdict on Part 1 Art. 148 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (public actions expressing clear disrespect for society in order to offend the religious feelings of believers) to two residents of the city of Sosnovka Vyatskopolyansky district. The court recognized Konstantin Kazantsev and Rustem Shaidullin guilty that in the fall of 2015 they hung a homemade scarecrow c an insulting inscription on a bow cross in the village of Staraya Malinovka. Court appointed them a punishment in the form of compulsory work - 230 hours each. With our point of view, the actions of the convicts did not represent a significant social danger and could be qualified as an administrative offense, but not as a criminal offence.

In Samara in June he was convicted under Part 1 of Art. 282.2 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (organization of the activities of an extremist organization) and Part 2 of Art. 205.5 CC Russian Federation (participation in the activities of a terrorist organization) Fanis Gainutdinov. The court considered that, being a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, he involved in this organization new members, and sentenced him to six years general regime colonies. Gaynutdinov was convicted under the same articles in 2005.

In Chelyabinsk, FSB officers detained three Muslims on suspicion of involvement in the activities of a prohibited religious Hizb ut-Tahrir party. The detainees were prosecuted case under Part 2 of Art. 205.5 of the Criminal Code (participation in the activities of terrorist organizations). According to the FSB, the detainees belonged to the same "cell" as the five believers convicted in Chelyabinsk in February 2016.

Recall that we consider the accusation unjustified followers of Hizb ut-Tahrir in terrorist crimes only on on the basis of their party activities (holding meetings, reading literature and etc.).

Administrative persecution and banning of organizations for extremism

In June, the Shatsky District Court of the Ryazan Region fined a resident the village of Putyatino Zaura Korolev for 2 thousand rubles, having found him guilty under Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (public display of Nazi symbols). In the words of Queen, law enforcement claims caused publications on his page on the social network "Vkontakte", in particular, a picture with a swastika on one scales and a hammer and sickle on the other, as well as images fastened together swastikas and hammer and sickle. In addition, the public demonstration of the Nazi symbolism, the court considered the publication on the social network of a collage with Vladimir Putin in Nazi form, which was accompanied by statements by Vyacheslav Volodin about President and Rudolf Hess about Hitler. We believe that in this case is not about propaganda of Nazism, but about the use of Nazi symbols in as an instrument of controversy, and therefore Korolev was unjustly punished. However current Russian law punishes any demonstration Nazi symbols without context.

In June, local organizations and individual followers of Jehovah's Witnesses. As a reminder, we consider it unlawful to ban the literature of the Witnesses. Jehovah as extremist, the persecution of believers for its distribution, and as well as the elimination of their communities. We regard such actions of the authorities as religious discrimination.

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation approved the decisions of regional courts on the prohibition of the communities of Belgorod and Stary Oskol.

The Oryol regional court declared extremist local organization of Jehovah's Witnesses and ordered its liquidation.

Under the threat of liquidation was a local organization of Jehovah's Witnesses in the city of Udachny in the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia. It is reported that as a result of the operation of law enforcement agencies to seize literature, recognized as extremist, the head of the community was submitted a proposal to eliminate violations of the law. Earlier, in January 2016, a follower of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Udachnoe already was fined for distributing banned pamphlets. Subsequent incidents may lead to community ban.

In June, according to Art. 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses for distributing brochures of Witnesses Jehovahs recognized as extremist, or their possession for the purpose of distribution fined one individual and two legal entities, namely religious organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses in Abakan (Republic of Khakassia) and Saransk (The Republic of Mordovia).

Only in Arkhangelsk did the regional court refuse the regional prosecutor's office, demanding to liquidate the local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses as extremist. During the trial on one of the episodes, imputed to the community, a fingerprint examination was carried out, which showed the absence of fingerprints of the chairman of the organization Alexandra Parygina on the package with those included in the Federal List extremist materials by publications. The packaging found in his car, according to Parygin, was planted on him. Note that earlier Parygin had already been fined for distributing banned literature and in October 2015 year, he himself filed an application with the Ministry of Justice for the liquidation of his organization.