The Investigative Committee reclassified the charge against Dina Garina as an article for which the statute of limitations had expired

The accusation against the far-right activist has been reclassified from inciting hatred to insulting a representative of the authorities.

The Investigative Committee has reclassified the criminal case of far-right activist Dina Garina from Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (inciting hatred or enmity) to article 319 of the Criminal Code (insulting a representative of authority). At the same time, the term for bringing to criminal liability under Art. 319 in this case has already expired.

Recall that in February 2017, the Garina court returned the case to the prosecutor, as it came to the conclusion that the investigator violated the right of the accused to familiarize herself with the case materials, did not explain her rights and committed other procedural violations, and besides, the charge brought is lengthy and does not establish actions associated with the subjective side of the crime. In August 2017, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Central District of St. Petersburg returned case in the UK to eliminate the identified violations and produce an additional investigation.

The case, originally brought to trial in December 2016, was initiated in connection with the speech Garina at a rally on March 15, 2015, during which she commented on the work of employees of the centers for combating extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Garina's speech, from our point of view, contained insults and racist statements, attributing to the employees of the "E" centers a different ethnic (non-Russian, mixed) origin, as well as "genetic hatred" for Russians. Garina was accused of "inciting hatred or enmity, as well as humiliating human dignity, that is, actions aimed at inciting hatred or enmity, as well as humiliating the dignity of a person or group of people on the grounds of origin, as well as belonging to any social group, " committed in public . The concept of incitement to hatred based on origin is absent from the law on combating extremist activity. However, it is included in Art. 282 of the Criminal Code, although rarely appears in law enforcement practice; apparently, it should be interpreted as inciting hatred on a national (ethnic) basis. Note that the object of inciting hatred in this case seemed to us very vague (for example, should we understand that Garina's speech is directed at all representatives of other ethnic groups, or only some, say, natives of the Caucasus or Central Asia). Given that Garina's speech did not contain calls for violence and hardly posed a significant public danger, the expediency of criminal prosecution for inciting ethnic hatred in this case raised considerable doubts.

As for inciting hatred against the employees of the "E" centers as a social group, we believe that such an accusation was unlawful, since, from our point of view, Art. 282 of the Criminal Code should protect vulnerable groups of the population, and not law enforcement agencies, protected by other articles of the Criminal Code. And the application of Art. 319 of the Criminal Code in this case is more appropriate. It should be noted that the case against Garina was initiated only on the sixth attempt: the investigator of the investigative department of the Investigative Committee for St. Petersburg five times refused to initiate a case and appointed a new examination as part of the pre-investigation check, referring to the precedent with the case of the Voina group, which was closed . because the experts considered that law enforcement officers are not a social group.

Earlier, in March 2016, Dina Garina had already been convicted under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (inciting national hatred) and part 2 of Art. 280 of the Criminal Code (public calls for extremist activity).

Sources

• In St. Petersburg, a new charge was filed in the case of criticizing the policemen of the Center "E" // Agora International Human Rights Group. 2018. January 15.