A court in St. Petersburg recognized the book “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party” as prohibited material for distribution

The book about the Chinese Communist Party is prohibited from distribution, the rest of its circulation is subject to confiscation.

On May 31, 2019, the Nevsky District Court of St. Petersburg, at the suit of the city prosecutor's office, declared the book "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party" banned for distribution in Russia (M., 2015). This book is distributed by followers of the spiritual practice "Falun Gong" (the authorship of the collection belongs to the Epoch Times media project). The unsold part of the circulation is subject to confiscation. The defendants intend to appeal the decision of the court.

Initially, in January 2019, the Petrogradsky District Court of St. Petersburg began considering a lawsuit to ban the book. As defendants, the Association "Center for Spiritual and Physical Improvement "Falun Dafa"" and the printing house "Fintreks" were involved, in which the book was printed. At the request of the association, certified copies of the decision of the Oktyabrsky District Court of Yekaterinburg and the ruling of the Sverdlovsk Regional Court, which in 2010 refused to recognize as extremist material another edition of the book "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party" (M., 2005), as well as a copy of the this edition. In addition, the court involved Valentina Vinogradova as a defendant, who, trying to coordinate the picket, provided the book to the administration of the Kirovsky district of St. Petersburg, after which the deputy head of the district turned to the prosecutor's office. After that, on March 4, the case was referred to the jurisdiction of the Nevsky District Court.

It follows from the court decision that, as part of an audit conducted by the prosecutor's office of the Kirovsky district of St. Petersburg, the book was examined by a psychologist and linguist from the Etna Center for Religious Studies. An expert psychologist found that the collection contains psychological signs of inciting hostility " in relation to the Communist Party ", psychological signs of propaganda of superiority, exclusivity, inferiority " in relation to all representatives of the Communist Party ", as well as psychological signs of humiliation. From the point of view of an expert linguist, there are no statements aimed at promoting the superiority or inferiority of citizens on the basis of social, racial, religious or linguistic affiliation, but it contains statements "aimed at inciting social hatred towards the followers of the Communist Party of China and communism in general .

This conclusion of the experts was recognized by the court as admissible evidence. The court rejected the review by the Human Rights Center "Memorial" and the alternative opinion of the specialist, since they were not supported by documents confirming the qualifications of the reviewer.

From our point of view, the ban on the book "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party" does not have sufficient grounds. This publication contains harsh criticism of the activities of the CCP. However, while opposing the party, the authors of the book remain within the framework of historical and political discussion, do not allow any manifestations of ethnic xenophobia, do not promote violence, and, on the contrary, emphasize the importance of "non-violent transition to a society freed from the CCP . " Therefore, we believe that the decision of the Yekaterinburg court, which refused the prosecutor's office to ban the book for inciting hatred against the Chinese who are supporters of the CCP, was correct, and the decision of the St. Petersburg court constitutes an excessive interference with freedom of expression.

In addition, the decision of the Nevsky District Court states that the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office found materials on the Velikaya Epokha website that partially coincided with the text of the printed publication. Probably, in this regard, as in the case of the ban on the book by Jan Nowak-Jezioranski "Oriental Reflections", the court, in addition to referring to the norms of anti-extremist legislation, appealed to Part 1 of Art. 9 and hh. 1, 6 art. 10 of the federal law "On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection". However, the first of these articles has nothing to do with the essence of the matter at all: it concerns the restriction of access to secrets and personal data. The second article contains a general ban on the dissemination of xenophobic propaganda and other information online, the dissemination of which provides for criminal or administrative liability. But to ban materials with xenophobic propaganda, the legislation provides for a special mechanism - this is the recognition of materials as extremist, and there are no good reasons to use another ban mechanism. In other words, from our point of view, the recognition of the "Nine Commentaries" as forbidden for distribution, but not extremist, is in itself incorrect - even taking into account the presence of a partial copy of the book on the Internet.

Sources

• Inc. inf.
• Case card No. 2a-3970/2019 // Website of the Nevsky District Court of St. Petersburg. 2019. June 7th.