The court in St. Petersburg returned to the prosecutor the case of inciting hatred against employees of the Center for Special Exclusion Centers

The Dzerzhinsky District Court of St. Petersburg today, February 1, decided to return the criminal case of the nationalist Dina Garina to the Central District Prosecutor's Office to eliminate violations. The activist is accused of inciting hatred or enmity on the basis of belonging to the social group “employees of the Center for Combating Extremism” (under Part 1 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by lawyer Dmitry Dinze, representing the interests of the civil activist.

“Today the court came to the conclusion that at the stage of completing the preliminary investigation, the investigator violated Garina’s right to familiarize herself with the case materials, did not explain her rights and committed other procedural violations. The court indicated in the ruling that the charge brought is lengthy and does not establish actions related to the subjective side of the crime, ”said lawyer Dmitry Dinze.

The case was initiated in connection with Garina's speech at a rally in March 2015, during which the activist commented on the work of the employees of the Center for Combating Extremism. According to Sova, Garina's speech did indeed contain racist statements and insults from the CPE employees, who were attributed to non-Russian origin and "genetic hatred" for Russians, however, the speech did not contain calls for violence. In addition, it is not clear how to evaluate Garina's words: as incitement of hatred in general towards all representatives of the non-Russian ethnic group, or as incitement of hatred only towards the employees of the Center "E"

The Investigative Committee for St. Petersburg five times refused to open a case against Garina, refusing to consider the CPE employees a separate social group. Finally, on the sixth attempt, the case was nevertheless initiated, and the examinations conducted at the initiative of the defense were not attached to the case, and in the examinations of the investigation, the experts, among other things, were asked about the presence of signs of incitement to hatred in Garina's speech, although under the law this may only the court can answer.

In March 2016, the activist was already convicted under part 1 of article 282 and part 2 of article 280 of the Criminal Code (public calls for extremist activity) for publications on social networks.