The diploma brought to the colony

The student of the Voronezh Law University received 2.5 years for reposts in the preparation of the thesis about extremism

Belgorod Regional Court photo: Like-a-freedom.ru

In Voronezh, a legal student wrote a thesis about extremism. And he received 2.5 years under the 282nd “extremist” article of the Criminal Code. On Monday, February 12, the Belgorod Regional Court rejected its appeal, now he must go to the colony. Lawyers are going to seek the cancellation of the sentence until applying to the ECHR.

2.5 years for 4 pictures

Alexander Kruze (right)
Photo from the site mk.ru

December 27, 2017 Student Alexander Kruze, studying at the Voronezh Economic and Law Institute (VEPI) received 2.5 years in a colony settlement for reposts on his VKontakte page of four pictures recognized as extremist. Alexander is 23 years old, he lives in Old Oskol of the Belgorod region, works and helps a sick father, and studies at the institute in absentia. Before admitting to the legal faculty of Cruise, he managed to serve in the army.

He fell into the field of view of punitive organs, as he wrote a diploma on “extremism in modern conditions: international aspects of counteraction”. The student approached the writing of the diploma responsibly and published “extremist” pictures for conducting a survey on his page on a social network. This is precisely the basis for initiating the case. His story became known to the general public only in February, literally the day before the appeal, when the federal press drew attention to this case.

The student approached the writing of the diploma responsibly and published “extremist” pictures for conducting a survey on his VKontakte page. This is precisely the basis for the initiation of a criminal case against him

There were four pictures. Two posters - with crossed communist symbols and the inscription “On the trees, the Communists will hang on the trees instead of leaves”, as well as with two soldiers, crossed out by the David star, Russian and Ukrainian flags and slogans: “We will turn the Fratricish War into the Liberation War.” Two other pictures - with the public statements of the nationalist Maxim Bazilev, who died in the pre -trial detention center.

All these pictures and quotes are freely distributed on the Internet, not included in any prohibited lists, and many people publish them with different purposes. But the guarantee of the effectiveness of repression in their chance - every citizen of Russia must live with a feeling that it can become their victim, not giving any reason for this. This is how the atmosphere of total fear is created.

For the first time, FSB officers came to the Kruz apartment on July 11, 2017. Already at the end of July, a criminal case was brought against Alexander under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "The initiation of hatred or enmity, as well as the humiliation of human dignity." He learned about this only on August 27. The month was required to find an investigator ready to bring the matter to the end, that is, to the landing of the accused.

"And then I finally woke up"

“Investigators did not pay attention that I had a lot of material incompatible with Nazism on my page, the reposts of articles that the Nazis did in the 1940s, including in relation to the Jews,” Kruze told journalists. “But this was not attached to the criminal case.” Even the fact of writing a diploma on extremism I did not enter there. When I made notes at the end of the protocols of interrogation about the diploma, the investigator immediately remade them. He said to me: “You don’t have to write about the diploma, then you’ll tell you at the trial.”

The leadership of the university and the supervisor of Alexander Kruze, to whom the journalists turned for comments, hastened to disown him. “Yes, indeed, this student chose such a topic. The circumstances indicated in the article cannot be the subject of the final qualification work. Since we consider legal analysis, neither political nor sociological, we do not conduct any other aspects. And sociological studies in this case are not at all appropriate, ”said the supervisor of Cruise, Associate Professor of VEPI Alla Deadynikova .

“Investigators did not pay attention that I have a lot of material on my page incompatible with Nazism. This was not attached to the criminal case. Even the fact of writing a diploma on the topic of extremism did not enter there "

For VEPI, this position is clear. For the past few years, Rosobrnadzor wants to deprive him of a license (the fight against private universities has been going on throughout the country). Despite the frequently arising disagreements with the supervisory authority, the institute continues to work so far.

There are more and more cases about repost. The resonance received the case of a mechanical engineer from TverAndrei Bubeev , sentenced to two years and three months of a colony-settlement for repost of the material about the belonging of Crimea. As well as the case of Vladimir Tymoshenko , whom the court in St. Petersburg put for 2 years for posts in VKontakte about the “ruling regime”, “repressive-penitentiary organs”.

Justifying his pursuit of the student, the Belgorod prosecutor’s office said that he had already been involved in an article on extremism - in 2015 Cruise published a photograph of tattoos with “extremist images” on the social network, for which he was fined. And then it is completely amnesty. In addition, on his page on VKontakte the song "A wonderful skinhead appeared in our house." However, not Cruze himself placed it, but another user.

“The amnesty exempts criminal liability, and the Starooskolsky city court did not have the right to increase the deadline on this basis,” said Andrei Milevsky, lawyer Alexander Kruze.

"Only the FSB major can ask about it"

The reaction of the Voronezh public to this story is noteworthy. Trying to collect the material about the case of Alexander Kruze, the NT correspondent wrote a question in the political chat in Telegram, where Alexei Navalny's students correspond to. But none of the chat participants wanted to say anything - the accusations rained down that “only the FSB major could request such information”, “this is a provocation to plant us with Cruise,” etc. The human rights community also preferred to pretend that he knew nothing. “We do not know which of the lawyers conducted the Cruise case, it was not covered in the media at all, they did not contact us, so everything became known just yesterday from media publications. We are trying to find a lawyer. " Namely, such an answer was received when contacting Voronezh one of the most active human rights organizations. City media learned about the Cruise case only from publications in federal ones.

A few days ago, a protest was held in Voronezh, which told the story of Alexander Kruze. It turned out that no more than three people heard something about her.

Recently, the number of criminal cases instituted for critical posts on social networks has sharply increased, says Alexander Verkhovsky , director of the SOVA information and analytical center, a member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights. According to the estimates of Owl experts, from 85% to 90% of these statements occur on the Internet, of which almost 90% on social networks, and for the most part - on VKontakte. “In 2016, about 600 people were convicted of such statements. This is a huge increase in the last two and a half years. For the first half of 2017 - more than 270 people, ”he says.