Kazan activist received five days of arrest for publishing a collage with Kolovrat

The reason for the arrest of Batyrkhan Agzamov under Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses was the placement of a demotivator on VKontakte, exposing the DPR militias in nationalist views.

On March 14, 2018, the Kirovsky District Court of Kazan appointed an activist of the Union Tatar youth "Azatlyk" Batyrkhan Agzamov five days of arrest for Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (propaganda or public demonstration of Nazi paraphernalia or symbols, or attributes or symbols of extremist organizations). Agzamov is appealing this decision.

According to Agzamov, the reason for the persecution was that in 2016 year, he posted on his page on the social network "VKontakte" demotivator, which is a collage of two parts: on one, a DPR militia Aleksey Milchakov poses near a charred corpse, and on the other he is handed patch with kolovrat. Above the collage was placed the inscription: "Russia - it's when you actually burn people alive in a foreign country and pose with a smile next to their corpses, but when you return to Moscow for a neo-Nazi congress, you are not presented with no accusations."

Let us recall that in the expert opinion drawn up in the case, it was stated that Kolovrat has a confusing resemblance to the swastika, and in the 90s of the XX century became a sign of Russian nationalists. The prosecutor's office in the decision to initiate case also indicated that, from her point of view, Kolovrat is prohibited, since in The Federal List of Extremist Materials includes image (apparently, it was about item 947). However, Kolovrat is known in various options, and most importantly, the recognition of an image as extremist does not mean a ban to distribute the image of all its elements.

In general, from our point of view, sanctions for demonstrating one or another symbols are appropriate when it comes to the propaganda of a dangerous ideology, Agzamov obviously did not set himself such a goal; he himself explains that he posted a demotivator in protest against hostilities in Ukraine.

We also note that the attention of law enforcement agencies to Agzamov, probably dictated by his participation in actions in support of mandatory teaching the Tatar language in educational institutions of the republic.

Sources

• In Kazan, the court arrested a Tatar activist in the case of the demonstration of Nazi symbols // OVD-Info. March 14, 2018
• Case card No. 5-102/2018 // Website of the Kirovsky District Court of Kazan. March 14, 2018