Mail.ru Group proposed creating an expert council on extremist publications

A meeting was held at the Public Chamber on the topic of liberalizing anti-extremist legislation. The proposals made at it will be sent to the Duma.

On October 5, 2018, a meeting of the Commission of the Public Chamber of Russia for the development of the information community, media and mass communications was held, dedicated to the liberalization of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code and its application.

At the meeting, Vice President of Mail.ru Group (owns the social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki) Vladimir Gabrielyan proposed creating a separate expert body that would review user publications. “The materials that the court considers undergo an examination before this; experts usually believe that the materials that the investigative bodies bring to them are a priori extremist. It seems to me that it is very important to reform this particular examination body so that it is a precisely qualified examination, so that the examination looks at the materials through the eyes of the user, so that it understands that sometimes a joke is just a joke. I think it will be very important to form some kind of expert body, which can include members of the Public Chamber, human rights activists, along with specialists who determine harmfulness. materials in order to give a more comprehensive assessment than is being done now ,” TASS quotes Gabrielyan.

According to the agency, the company also supports the decriminalization of not only Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (incitement to hatred), but also Art. 148 of the Criminal Code (insulting the feelings of believers). In addition, in his speech, Gabrielyan spoke positively aboutthe decision of the plenum of the Supreme Court on the consideration of extremist cases and repeated the proposal to grant amnesty to previously convicted network users.

First Deputy Chairman of the Commission Alexander Malkevich added to Gabrielyan’s words that it is necessary to either reduce the number of unqualified experts or provide them with professional training. ONF representative Arslanbek Cherkesov, in turn, emphasized that when conducting an examination, it is necessary to evaluate the motive for the publication and take into account the personality characteristics of the author and the presence of comments. The head of the Human Rights Council (HRC), Mikhail Fedotov, raised the question of whether expertise is always needed in cases of incitement to hatred, RIA Novosti reports.

The head of the department for the protection of human rights in criminal proceedings of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, Lyubov Philip, in her speech voiced a proposal to clarify the definition of extremist activity in the relevant federal law. According to Life, she stressed that it should be brought into compliance with the Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism, pointing out the connection of such activities with the use of violence.

Malkevich told RAPSI that during the discussion, many proposals were made not only to change approaches to the work of experts, but also to control content by social network administrations, to strengthen control over extremist cases by the prosecutor’s office and to correct shortcomings in the functioning of the list of extremist materials .

“ The purpose of the event is to ensure the collection and preparation of proposals from society, which will be sent to the State Duma for the second reading of the bill on the decriminalization of part 1 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ,” he added.

Sources

• Mail.ru proposed creating an expert body to assess social networks for extremism // TASS. 2018. October 5.
• OP will prepare proposals to mitigate punishment for illegal publications on the Internet // RAPSI. 2018. October 5.
• Alexey Berkovits. Experts: Mitigation of punishment for reposts is a compromise that will suit everyone // Life. 2018. October 5.
• “Sometimes a like is just a like”: the OP discussed changing Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation // RIA Novosti. 2018. October 5.