The ex-head of the Samara “Community of Indigenous Russian People” was suspected of extremism due to VKontakte posts

In Togliatti, the former head of the Samara "Community of the Indigenous Russian People" Lyubov Kuzaeva was detained for 48 hours. She was suspected of telling her supporters to post extremist materials. Timur Miftakhutdinov, lawyer for the international human rights group Agora, told Novaya Gazeta about this.

According to the investigation, at the direction of Kuzayeva, who led the community until 2015, members of the association posted extremist materials on social networks. Kuzaeva claims that these suspicions are unfounded and fictitious.

Miftakhutdinov specified that two more cases of extremism were brought against Kuzaeva, which were combined with the previous ones related to accusations of inciting ethnic hatred and justifying Nazism.

“Based on the speed with which new criminal cases appear, where Lyubov Kuzaeva becomes a suspect, it can be assumed that law enforcement agencies of the Samara Region are preparing this pensioner from Tolyatti to play the role of an organizer of an extremist community (Article 282.1 of the Criminal Code),” the lawyer said.

The lawyer noted that this is already the fourth criminal case on extremism initiated in the Samara region against supporters of the “Community of the Indigenous Russian People”.

The reason for the first criminal cases was the video "VKontakte", which was posted from Kuzaeva's netbook in 2016. The woman herself said that she did not publish this video. Her computer was in the office, it did not have a password, so, according to Kuzaeva, anyone could post the video. Later, the UK canceled the decision to initiate this case.

“Kuzayeva was a voting member of the election commission, so criminal cases could be initiated against her by the head or deputy head of the Investigative Committee of the region. Initially, the cases were initiated by an ordinary investigator,” Miftakhutdinov said. The lawyer clarified that as soon as the investigators saw the mistake, they canceled the decisions and decided to initiate criminal cases on the same grounds and articles, following the Code of Criminal Procedure.