“The court will sort it out”?

For whom the bell of Jehovah's Witnesses rang*

On February 7, two “signals” sounded from the imaginary Kremlin, and the difference between them reveals the mechanism of interaction between the presidential administration and the judiciary. Both reports were related to a harsh sentence (6 years in prison) passed the day before in Orel to the rector of the Jehovah's Witnesses community, Danish citizen Dennis Christensen. The "Administrative Center" and local organizations of "witnesses" are banned in the Russian Federation - by decision of the Supreme Court in April 2017, they were recognized as extremist, in particular, with reference to the fact that their god, according to the literature presented to the court, is revered by Jehovists as the only one (on this basis can be recognized as "extremist" all Abrahamic religions and all their versions, including Orthodoxy).

Dmitry Peskov, deputy head of the Presidential Administration and press secretary of the president, told the media on February 7 that the forthcoming list of the president's instructions based on the results of his meeting with the HRC on December 11, 2018 will also include an item “concerning the topic of the Jehovah's Witnesses organization banned in the Russian Federation.” Peskov did not hold any open press conferences that day, but the day before, at the Kommersant Publishing House Media Day forum, he admitted that he had started the practice of “conference calls”, during which he reports the most important news to some media, considering such a practice more effective than traditional press releases. Reflecting on the fate of Pastor Christensen, Peskov noted: “We have no right to comment on the decision of the court, which recognized this organization as extremist.”

This message appeared on the TASS tape at 12.48, and at 15.27 Mikhail Fedotov, presidential adviser and chairman of the Human Rights Council, in an interview with Interfax, expressed a somewhat different opinion: the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of April 20, 2017 on the actual ban on Jehovah's Witnesses “of course, can be revised ". Interfax also cites Fedotov's comment, made with obvious satisfaction: "If a person professes the dogma of Jehovah's Witnesses, he acts in his own right and does not violate the law."

The order established in the AP, it seems to me, excludes the possibility of the accidental occurrence of two such dissimilar statements with an interval of less than three hours.

This means that Fedotova could have asked for an addition either by Peskov himself, or by someone who is higher in rank than him and Fedotov.

Here we find ourselves in the position of an observer at the “black box”: we see only the “exit”, although we can also make assumptions about the mechanism of action.

Let's pay attention to the speed with which the "box" worked. Most likely, it is connected with the fact that the “witness” sent to the bunk the day before is a citizen of Denmark, and information about the Oryol verdict (an ordinary one for the same precedent with a citizen of the Russian Federation) was brought up somewhere instantly. But even more likely from the "box" one could expect the usual short answer: "We do not interfere in the activities of the judiciary."

To understand why something else popped up, we'll have to go back to the President's meeting with the HRC on December 11, during which the topic of Jehovah's Witnesses was raised twice. First, Ekaterina Shulman raised the issue of the list of extremist organizations, in which, out of 489 positions, 404, according to her information, are communities of Jehovah's Witnesses. To this, the president replied: “... it is also necessary to take into account the country and the society in which we live. True, this does not mean that we should enroll representatives of religious communities in some kind of destructive organizations. Of course, this is complete nonsense ... "

Then the floor was given to Vladimir Ryakhovsky, who spoke about the administrative persecution for "hidden missionary activity" (which in itself is nonsense). He did not mention the Jehovists, but the president himself again mentioned them:

“Jehovah's Witnesses are also Christians, I don't really understand why they should be persecuted… I'll have a talk with Vyacheslav Mikhailovich” (Lebedev, chairman of the Russian Armed Forces).

This promise of the president could mean exactly what he himself had repeatedly warned against - "pressure on the court." On February 7, Peskov also added, in the context of the conversation about the Jehovists, as if in passing, that "in the period after the meeting with the HRC, the president met with Lebedev." Although there was no need for such obvious “pressure”: the chairman of the RF Armed Forces read the transcript. The Oryol court will also understand literacy, and although against the backdrop of the decision of the Supreme Court to ban “witnesses”, the local judge simply could not pass an acquittal, but still 6 years, and even a Dane - what gates?

This partly dramatic, partly comical, partly hidden, partly explicit history suggests a black box reconfiguration. Immediately after the president's meeting with the HRC on December 11, we noticed that Putin used the standard cliche, "The court will sort it out," less often than before and not as emphatically. This formula, apparently, has ceased to convince the president himself: it turns out that the court is not very capable of “figuring it out”.

The AP will not raise a fuss in vain. Of course, the “tick” is only put somewhere “in the mind”, but it may indicate a desire to change something in the judicial (and in general “law enforcement”) system, somehow hobble it, which is also often “extremist” idiocy. But just as the previous settings of the "box" were made not with the help of clear laws, but with the help of implicit "signals", so now the persons responsible for this from the very top are trying to give new signals. What is needed is a real judicial reform, as well as a more transparent way for the Presidential Administration to communicate with the press.

* the organization is recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation