The prosecutor's office asks the court to exclude the article "Silence of the Lambs" from the list of extremist materials

A motion was filed to reconsider the case due to newly discovered circumstances.

On August 21, 2017, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Adygea sent a petition to the Maykop City Court to review, due to newly discovered circumstances, the decision to recognize the article “Silence of the Lambs”, published by environmentalist Valery Brinikh on the website “For Krasnodar”, as extremist. The hearing of the case is scheduled for September 13, 2017.

In connection with his involvement in the publication of the article "Silence of the Lambs" about environmental pollution by the pig-breeding complex of CJSC "Kyevo-Zhuraki APC", Brynikh was accused of inciting hatred against the Adyghes (Article 282 of the Criminal Code). In December 2014, the article was recognized as extremist by the Maykop city court, this decision was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Adygea. in August 2017 However, the persecution of Brinich himself was terminated : the public prosecutor dropped the charges after an examination conducted by the Institute of Forensic Science of the Center for Special Equipment of the FSB of Russia did not find negative assessments in relation to social groups, signs of humiliation of their dignity and calls for violence in the article. . The prosecutor's office considered this conclusion of experts as newly discovered circumstances, on which the decision to ban the article should be reviewed.

We welcome this move by the prosecutor's office, as we are convinced that the article was unlawfully recognized as extremist. The author blamed the inhabitants of the Teuchezhsky district of Adygea (and not the Adygei in general), where the polluting enterprise is located, of giving in to the authorities and not actively defending their interests. The corresponding statements were not aimed at inciting enmity towards the residents of the district, they were addressed to these residents themselves in order to offend them and awaken in them a sense of civic responsibility. Some sharpness of the article - accusations of cowardice and lack of self-esteem - did not give grounds either for its ban or for initiating a criminal case. Obviously, the local authorities used this publication as an excuse to put pressure on the environmentalist. The owner of ZAO Kyiv-Zhuraki APK was ex-member of the Federation Council Vyacheslav Derev, for insulting whom the Maikop City Court in March 2015 fined Brynikh 100,000 rubles.

Sources

• Anastasia Kurilova. Lambs on the verge of rehabilitation // Kommersant. 2017. August 28.
• The prosecutor's office asks to exclude the article by environmentalist Brynich from the list of extremist materials. Report of the international human rights group "Agora". 2017. August 29.