A copy of the Communist Party newspaper was confiscated in Tula

The police decided to check the Tulskaya Pravda newspaper for extremism.

On May 8, 2019, in Tula, the police seized 7,000 copies of the Tulskaya Pravda newspaper to check for extremism.

At the same time, five activists of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation were also detained, including secretary of the Tula regional party committee and editor-in-chief of the newspaper Mikhail Fedorov, district deputy Maxim Dronov and ex-deputy of the regional Duma Alexander Novikov. It is reported that a protocol was drawn up against Dronov under Art. 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (production and distribution of extremist materials), which stated that he "distributed newspapers that may contain information of an extremist nature." Recall that Art. 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses applies only in cases of distribution of materials prohibited by the court and included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials.

Previously, party activists were detained for distributing leaflets against the increase in tariffs for garbage collection. The circulation of leaflets was also confiscated at that time to check for extremism.

From our point of view, it is enough to confiscate one or several copies in order to carry out an inspection of printed materials, but we consider the confiscation of the entire print run to be unlawful.

Sources

• Distributors of the Communist Party newspaper detained in Tula // OVD-Info. May 8, 2019