PARNAS activist reported persecution for publishing a photo of Putin with a Hitler mustache

An administrative case under Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses.

On September 28, 2016, the ex-candidate for the State Duma from the Party of People's Freedom (PARNAS), Yevgeny Bakhotsky from Krasnoyarsk, announced that an administrative protocol had been drawn up against him under Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (public display of Nazi symbols).

According to the oppositionist, the prosecutor's office of the Krasnoyarsk Territory told him that the case of an administrative offense was initiated on the basis of materials from the regional department of the FSB and concerns reposts on the VKontakte social network. Among the publications imputed to him, Bakhotsky named collages with the image of Vladimir Putin in the form of an SS and with the image of Putin with the mustache of Adolf Hitler and the caption "Get out of Ukraine." The activist claimed that he did not post these images on the social network.

The case was considered on October 4, 2016 by the Oktyabrsky District Court of Krasnoyarsk, Bakhotsky was fined 2,000 rubles. It follows from the court ruling that, in addition to collages with Putin, Bakhotsky was charged with publishing an image with a St. George ribbon on which a swastika was applied, photographs of neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic graffiti in Moscow with an angry comment by Bakhotsky about the responsibility of the authorities for the spread of fascist ideology in the country, as well as photographs of a metal badge with a symbol similar to a swastika (the context of this publication is not entirely clear).

We believe that the dissemination of such images cannot be interpreted as carried out for the purposes of neo-Nazi propaganda: these publications pursued exclusively the goals of political controversy, their context as a whole clearly indicates Bakhotsky's rejection of Nazi ideology. We regard the persecution of Bakhotsky as unlawful, however, unfortunately, Russian anti-extremist legislation punishes any display of Nazi symbols without regard to context.

Earlier in 2016, prosecution under Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, PARNAS activists in Perm and Novosibirsk were subjected to .

Sources

• The FSB is interested in the Krasnoyarsk opposition because of the photo of Putin in the form of the SS // Peace Avenue. 2016. September 28.
• Eugene Bakhotsky. "I'm ready to be killed for my opposition activities" // Rus2web. 2016. September 29.
• Case card No. 5-471/2016 // Website of the Oktyabrsky District Court of Krasnoyarsk. November 9, 2016.