A member of the Chelyabinsk branch of PARNAS complained to the ECHR about his arrest for pictures with swastikas

Andrey Linev, co-chairman of the Chelyabinsk branch of the PARNAS party, filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights about the violation of freedom of expression and the right to a fair trial (Articles 10 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights). It is reported by RBC. Linev's interests with the ECtHR are represented by the lawyer of the international human rights group "Agora" Andrey Lepekhin.

At the end of December 2016, the court arrested Andrei Linev, co-chairman of the Chelyabinsk branch of PARNAS, for seven days for posting pictures of half-naked women in Nazi uniforms more than two years ago on the VKontakte social network.

On December 22, Linev himself published a post in which he spoke about the details of interest from law enforcement agencies in his account on the VKontakte social network. According to Linev, employees of the Center for Combating Extremism called him in for a conversation, during which they persuaded him to "cooperate." After the activist refused to cooperate, he was taken to the prosecutor's office, where he was charged under Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (propaganda or public display of Nazi paraphernalia or symbols). According to him, one of the police officers regularly monitored his page on VKontakte, where he found photos of half-naked women in Nazi military uniforms.

The complaint states that the publication of controversial images in itself is not extremist activity, but the right to freely express one's opinion.

“The applicant does not dispute that the swastika for the inhabitants of Russia is associated with the period of the Second World War and the aggression of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union and can evoke different feelings. That is why the swastika is an element of history, often used in educational, historical and artistic works. In controversial images, the swastika is not their main element, and its image cannot testify to the justification of fascism (the ideology of Nazism),” the complaint says.

Lawyer Lepekhin noted that while the Russian authorities adhere to a total ban on the display of Nazi symbols, this restriction "does not apply to media that regularly broadcast historical and feature films about the period of World War II."

“Images of military uniforms with a swastika can be freely found in museums. Therefore, the applicant argues that bringing him to justice is a clear discrimination compared to other subjects who freely display the swastika, ”added the lawyer.