The investigator sews a psychiatric hospital

The Petersburger faces forced treatment for the joke of VKontakte.

In 2015, Petersburger Eduard Nikitin published a joke on his social networks and a picture of the day of the day. A year later, Petersburg investigators drew attention to this, who in 2017 interrogated Nikitin, and in 2018 they transferred a criminal case to the court under the infamous article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (inciting interethnic growth). Contrary to widespread practice, as a punishment for a joker, they do not require landings and fines.

Eduard Nikitin is an unemployed, disabled person of the second group, 43 years old, idle, previously not convicted. He himself tells about this at the preliminary meeting of the Nevsky District Court on Monday, August 20. Lawyer Maxim Kamakin asks the court to recognize the expert opinion submitted by the charge. Protection insists: this document contains unscientific and simply false data. The lawyer’s request is attached to the case along with another request from the prosecution: to hold all further meetings in the case in closed mode. This is due to the fact that data on the state of health of the defendant will be announced at the court.

The joke, published by Edward, seems harmless and simply stupid: the son asks his father whether something in the country will change (the name of the country is not indicated) after the election. The father replies that two cherries on a heap of shit will not make a cake out of it. The picture is dumber, and the word “quilted jacket” is played there - good and cold.

From the materials of the criminal case

A variety of mental operations

In order to prove Nikitin's incitement of hatred and enmity, investigator Denis helped the pictures of his VKontakte page to experts of the Main Investigative Department of the SK. Specialists of Rezeda Salakhutdinova, Elena Kiryukhina and Tatyana Mamaeva, in turn, conducted (as indicated in the final document) “Qualitative analysis, including all the variety of mental operations”.

Among other things, experts refer to the definitions of the words “heap”, “cake”, “elections” and the verb “change” from the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language edited by S. A. Kuznetsov. Experts conclude that "the inscription ... contains in a veiled form distrust of any of the elected voting <...> in the possibility of positive changes in the country." Meanwhile, independent expert Dmitry Dubrovsky (to whom Nikitin’s defense turned) notes that “science is not known for such a method of scientific analysis as“ analysis using explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language ”.

Analyzing the picture with the word “quilted jacket”, experts also come to an unequivocal conclusion: it should be perceived by the words on it only “the wish of death to the Russian people”.

It is worth saying a few words about the personality of experts specified in the case. In 2009, as an ordinary expert of the Center for Judicial Expertise of the North-Western District, Elena Kiryukhina did not see the motive for hatred and enmity in the words “Kill x ** a, urine x ** a!” - These slogans were accompanied by the beating of the ninth -grader Tagira Kerimov from Dagestan (he spent several months in a coma). Here is a literal quote from the conclusion of Elena Kiryukhina: “The phrases“ rats - rats of death ”and“ Russia for Russians ” - in the context of this situation ( beating a teenager to half a death. - S. S. ) are not aimed at inciting interethnic growth and enmity, as well as humiliation of the dignity of a person or group of people according to the sign of the nationality of origin.” After that, Kiryukhina went to increase and became a senior expert in the special department of St. Petersburg, where he now analyzes jokes on the pages of disagreed citizens.

From the materials of the criminal case

Colleague Kiryukhina Reshed Salakhutdinova completely received an education in the specialty “Scientific Communism”. As Dmitry Dubrovsky notes, the main publications of Salahutdinova are associated with the sociology of youth and health, while there is no data on its experience in open access.

No. 5654

The struggle of the security forces with posts, likes and reposts of VKontakte has been actively conducted for several years, but this practice has received a wide resonance in July 2018, against the backdrop of several similar trials in Barnaul. At the same time, it turned out that the security service of the social network provides law enforcement agencies about users at the first request, without waiting for the court decision.

At the end of August, State Duma deputies Sergey Shargunov (Communist Party) and Alexei Zhuravlev (Rodina) submitted a draft law on the abolition of criminal punishment for the first part of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code. At the same time, as critics of the initiative noted, after transferring this part to the Code of Administrative Offenses, the number of administrative cases in relation to users of social networks can grow significantly.

Although Eduard Nikitin has not yet been proven, he, like many defendants in such cases, is already included in the “List of Extremists and Terrorists” , compiled by Rosfinmonitoring. In the list of 8566 people (as of August 21, 2018) Nikitin is held at number 5654.

The consideration of the case of a Petersburger will essentially begin on September 17.