Agora published a report on state interference in freedom of historical discussion

On May 10, 2018, the international human rights group "Agora" published a report "Russia against History. Punishment for revision". It focuses on cases of state interference with freedom of expression in connection with the interpretation and evaluation of historical events, as well as the restriction of access to archives.

One hundred separate episodes were included in Agora's monitoring results, including 17 cases of criminal prosecution, 18 administrative cases, 41 examples of censorship, seven acts of legal regulation and proposals for its change, and six civil lawsuits (the list of episodes is presented in the appendix to the report).

The authors of the report noted that in recent years the state has made efforts to consolidate a unified concept of national history, and in parallel with this, " the protection of "historical values" has become a pretext for the persecution of civil activists and representatives of the political opposition ," and " anti-extremist legislation has naturally become the main tool " .

Examples of criminal prosecution included the case of a convicted person under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of Rafis Kashapov and cases under Art. 354.1 of the Criminal Code (rehabilitation of Nazism) in relation to Vladimir Luzgin , Vladimir Olennikov , Igor Dear , Alexei Volkov . Note that some of the sentences under Art. 354.1 of the Criminal Code is imposed for statements about history in the form of vandalizing monuments - an act that has long been criminalized in Russia. However, under Part 3 of Art. 354.1 of the Criminal Code, a sentence of imprisonment cannot be imposed, in contrast to Part 2 of Art. 214 of the Criminal Code (vandalism motivated by hatred).

The number of administrative cases under Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (public display of prohibited symbols) has increased nine times since 2012, Agora notes. Among them are examples of prosecutions for displaying Nazi symbols in a historical context, such as the case of a Sakhalin bookstore that sold the book "Wehrmacht Soldiers", or journalist Polina Danilevich, who published a photo of her own courtyard during the German occupation. At the same time, there are also cases of acquittal: in the case of Mikhail Listov and Andrei Yegorov .

Separately, the authors of the report write about cases of publications being banned under the pretext of countering extremism. As examples, bans are given both on the articles of historians ( Sebastian Shtopper and Kirill Aleksandrov ), and on the works of various ideologues of fascism and anti-Semitism. Bans on, for example, Nazi texts can be seen as a restriction on access to historical primary sources, but it can also be seen as a restriction on hate propaganda. The first is clearly undesirable, while the second lies in line with constitutional restrictions on freedom of expression. From the point of view of the SOVA Center, state policy in this area should be criticized not only, and perhaps not so much for the repressive attitude towards historical materials, but for disproportionate measures in counteracting hate propaganda and in choosing unsuitable mechanisms for this, including includes the ban on books.

"Agora" focuses on the position of the European Court of Human Rights, which pointed out that the search for historical truth is an integral part of freedom of speech, and the court should not interfere in the debate of historians regarding the events that took place and their interpretations. However, the denial or revision of certain historical facts, such as the Holocaust, is recognized as an abuse of the right to freedom of expression and, accordingly, is excluded from the protection of Article 10 of the Convention, the authors of the report note. We can add that the criminalization of "historical revisionism" is a pan-European trend of the last twenty years and concerns not only "denial of the Holocaust", but the Council of the EU considers such criminalization mandatory for national legislation. However, this does not mean a consensus on the question of whether "historical revisionism" should be criminalized, and even more so does not cancel claims to the very composition of Art. 354.1 of the Criminal Code .

The text of the report also notes that an important criterion for the ECtHR is the time elapsed since the events in question: it is impossible to apply equally strict standards to assessing recent events and those that occurred hundreds of years ago, the court believes. In addition, the ECHR believes that each state is obliged to make efforts for an open and impartial discussion of its own history, and, in particular, to give historians access to documentary sources.

According to Agora, " there are no signs that the Russian courts, police, prosecutors and investigators are ready to take into account and apply in practice the internationally recognized principles of freedom of historical discussion, and therefore a further increase in the number of criminal cases and administrative arrests should be expected, as well as proliferation of the list of banned literature ."

Sources

• Russia against History. Review penalty. Report of the international human rights group "Agora". May 10, 2018