The court softened the conditions of house arrest for the director of the Library of Ukrainian Literature

The Meshchansky Court of Moscow held preliminary hearings in the case of Natalya Sharina.

On October 21, 2016, preliminary hearings were held in the Meshchansky Court of Moscow in the case of the Director of the Library of Ukrainian Literature, Natalya Sharina, who is charged under paragraph "b" of Part 2 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (incitement of national hatred or enmity using one's official position) and ch. 3 and 4 art. 160 of the Criminal Code (embezzlement committed on a large and especially large scale). The court refused to return the case to the prosecutor's office and extended the defendant's house arrest until April 28, 2017, while allowing her small walks. The start of the consideration of the case on the merits is scheduled for November 2, 2016.

Case under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code against Sharina was initiated at the end of October 2015. The reason for the persecution was the fact that as a result of a search carried out at the request of a local municipal deputy, a banned book by Ukrainian nationalist Dmytro Korchinsky "Viyna u natovpi" (item 2089 of the Federal List of Extremist Materials) was discovered in the library. Sharina herself was detained on October 28 and placed under house arrest on October 30. The term of her detention under house arrest was repeatedly extended . The indictment was approved by the prosecutor's office only at the beginning of October 2016.

This is not the first attempt by the Russian authorities to bring Sharina to justice: in 2011, a case was also initiated against her under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code, but soon it was terminated due to the lack of corpus delicti.

From our point of view, the persecution of Sharina under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code is illegal for several reasons at once. The Law on Combating Extremism conflicts with the Law on Librarianship, since, in accordance with the latter, libraries are required to keep all incoming materials in the collection. The need to eliminate this contradiction is long overdue, however, instead of taking appropriate legislative measures, the authorities punish librarians for distributing prohibited literature or storing it for the purpose of distribution under Art. 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, if they do not check the titles of books from the funds and new acquisitions with the constantly updated Federal List of Extremist Materials and do not withdraw prohibited ones. In this case, not even an administrative, but a criminal case was initiated. Criminal prosecution under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code is carried out when it comes to a propaganda act - the deliberate distribution of materials, albeit not prohibited by the court, but of dangerous content. However, librarians do not engage in propaganda, they store and lend out books, and, naturally, no law prescribes them to get acquainted with the content of literature.

Sources

• House arrest of the director of the library of Ukrainian literature extended until April 28 // Interfax. 2016. October 21.