Translated material
The ECHR communicated the complaint of the defendants in the case of the German flag over the FSB
The European Court is considering a complaint from Kaliningrad residents who hung the German flag over the FSB garage and were convicted of hooliganism motivated by hatred of veterans.
On January 9, 2018, the European Court of Human Rights communicated the joint complaint of Mikhail Feldman and Oleg Savvin, who were convicted for hanging the German flag on the garage of the Kaliningrad department of the FSB.
Feldman, Savvin, and Dmitry Fonarev were sentenced in July 2015 to one year and one month in prison under Part 2 of Art. 213 of the Criminal Code (hooliganism committed by a group of persons by prior agreement on the grounds of political hatred and enmity and on grounds of hatred against a social group); The court added six months to this term for Feldman, having found him guilty under Art. 222 of the Criminal Code (illegal possession of explosives). The court considered the social group against which hatred was raised to be " veterans of the Great Patriotic War ".
The Strasbourg court raised questions before the Russian side as to whether the preliminary detention of Feldman and Savvin and their sentence could be regarded as an interference with the right to express an opinion, guaranteed by paragraph 1 of Art. 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and if so, whether the interference was justified, as prescribed by paragraph 2 of the same article. The ECtHR is interested in whether the Russian courts had relevant and sufficient grounds for such interference and whether they based their conclusions on properly established facts and existing standards for the application of Art. 10 of the Convention - in particular, whether the pre-trial detention and the sanction imposed on Feldman and Savvin pursued a legitimate aim, whether this interference corresponded to an urgent social need, and whether the pre-trial detention and the sanction were proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued. In addition, the ECtHR wants to know whether Feldman's conclusion was based on relevant and sufficient grounds, and whether " special diligence " in the conduct of the hearing, i.e. whether Feldman appeared before the court within a reasonable time.
We considered the sentence to Feldman, Savvin and Fonarev as illegal. From our point of view, the vague concept of a social group is a source of abuse and should be excluded from anti-extremist articles. In addition, according to the explanation of the Supreme Court regarding the practice of applying anti-extremist legislation, criticism of political figures (that is, the authorities) should not be considered as inciting hatred.
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