Irkutsk anarchist Litvin refused to dismiss the case due to the expiration of the statute of limitations

The court began considering the case of insulting the feelings of believers by posting pictures on the social network.

On October 5, 2018, in Irkutsk, the trial of the anarchist Dmitry Litvin, accused under Part 1 of Art. 148 of the Criminal Code. The defendant objected to the termination of the criminal prosecution on non-rehabilitating grounds - in connection with the expiration of the statute of limitations for prosecution, and also refused to consider the case in a special order.

The criminal case was initiated in April 2017, when a series of searches took place in Irkutsk at the home of Lytvyn and other anarchists. A year later, Litvin was charged with 15 episodes of insulting the feelings of believers, but subsequently in the final version of the charge . only four episodes remained

According to investigators, from April 29 to September 30, 2015, under the pseudonym Dmitry Bakunin, Litvin published four images on the VKontakte social network. The first picture shows an obscene gesture on the background of the church with the caption "Orthodoxy is our strength"; on the second, Jesus Christ and the Virgin conduct a dialogue in which they express doubts about the reliability of the miracles of turning water into wine and the Immaculate Conception; in the third, a boy in a pioneer tie holds a frog with Hitler's head in his hands, which licks the leg of a girl in a dress that looks like a shortened Catholic cassock; the fourth - the image of " a man resembling Jesus Christ, with his hands up, sitting on the bed next to the girl ". Lytvyn pleads not guilty and claims that several Irkutsk residents had access to the account.

From our point of view, the persecution of Lytvyn is unlawful. We did not have the opportunity to get acquainted with all four pictures, but, based on the descriptions, we believe that they may be unpleasant for believers, but they do not contain any aggressive appeals, and the publication of these images did not pose a public danger. We are also convinced that the concept of "insulting the feelings of believers", introduced in Art. 148 of the Criminal Code, does not have a clear legal meaning at all and should be excluded from the legislation.

Sources

• Ekaterina Vertinskaya. Irkutsk: anarchist will be tried for insulting the feelings of believers // Siberia. Realities. 2018. October 5.