Misuse of Anti-Extremism in October 2019

The following is our review of the primary and most representative events in misuse of Russia's anti-extremist legislation in October 2019.

Lawmaking

The law on procedural reform, which entered into force on October 1, transferred from civil to administrative jurisdiction cases on recognizing materials as extremist or recognizing online information as prohibited for distribution on the territory of Russia. Prosecutorial claims to recognize materials as extremist now have to be filed in the manner prescribed by the Code of Administrative Judicial Procedure. The law specifies materials that are to be enclosed with the claim and allows the court to involve the concerned parties in the proceedings, to name individuals whose actions served as the basis for filing the claim as defendants and to impose the legal costs on them. If such an individual has not been identified, courts shall involve the Ombudsman of the Russian Federation or an Ombudsman in a subject of the Federation in the judicial review of the case to “deliver an opinion.” In addition, courts can now carry out preventive blocking of materials, and their decisions to satisfy the claims are subject to immediate execution. The process of recognizing materials as prohibited for distribution follows a similar procedure, with the difference that Roskomnadzor rather than the Ombudsman must be involved.

In early October, a group of senators (Andrey Klishas, Lyudmila Bokova, Alexander Bashkin, and Alexander Karlin) introduced in the State Duma a package of two bills intended to expand to email services the provisions, currently existing in the federal law “On Information” and Article 13.39 of the Code of Administrative Offenses with regard to online messaging platforms, as well as to clarify these provisions. Under the proposed legislation, owners of messaging and email services are required to block user accounts, if law enforcement authorities establish the presence of messages containing information that is supposed to be blocked either by a court order or extrajudicially upon request of the Prosecutor General.

In mid-October, the State Duma rejected the draft bill introduced by deputies from the Communist Party and intended to exempt sociological research from liability under the law “On Combating Extremist Activity.” In our opinion, such amendments are unnecessary; clarification of certain nebulous formulas in the law and standardizing of the anti-extremist law enforcement would be far preferable.

Prosecutions for Oppositional Statements and Abuses in Countering Incitement to Hatred

Airat Dilmukhametov, an activist of the Bashkir national movement, faced a new charge under Article 280.1 of the Criminal Code (public calls for separatism) in early October in connection with his speech on the Personally Yours radio show aired by the Echo of Moscow station in Ufa on May 23, 2018. The investigation found illegal incitement in Dilmukhametov’s statements about the Fourth Bashkir Republic. In our opinion, although his speech was made in the spirit of Bashkir nationalism, Dilmukhametov didn’t call for secession of Bashkortostan from Russia, and certainly didn’t advocate violent separatism. We also view as inappropriate the earlier charges against Dilmukhametov: under Article 280.1 of the Criminal Code for the publication of a video address, under Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code (public justification of terrorism committed via the Internet) for a video discussing persecution against members of the radical Hizb ut-Tahrir party banned in Russia as terrorist, and under Article 280 of the Criminal Code (public calls for extremist activity) for his statements about Chechens.

In late October, the Kromy District Court of the Pskov Region discontinued the criminal prosecution against poet Alexander Byvshev in connection with the partial decriminalization of Article 282 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (incitement to hatred or enmity). He was charged under Article 282 for publishing his poems “Russian Spirit” and “The Mighty Heap.” In these poems, Byvshev mocked alleged aversion of Russians to cleanliness and order. In our opinion, despite the unflattering characteristics given by Byvshev to his fellow citizens, the criminal prosecution for these publications had been unfounded. Other charges against him that we also viewed as inappropriate – of public calls for extremism on the Internet (Article 280 Part 2 of the Criminal Code) in connection with publishing his poem “Dedicated to Expansion of NATO to the East” and of obstruction of justice (Article 294 part 1 of the Criminal Code) – were dropped at the preliminary investigation stage.

Yevgeny Kort, convicted in 2016 under Article 282 Part 1 of the Criminal Code for publishing an image depicting Pushkin and nationalist Tesak, won the payout of 200 thousand rubles from the state for illegal criminal prosecution. Kort’s sentence was overturned after the Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of Russia submitted his appeal to the Moscow City Court in December 2018. The case was sent for a re-trial and then dismissed in February 2019.

The Privolzhsky District Court of Kazan in October fined Danil Valiev 10 thousand rubles under Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (incitement to hatred or enmity, as well as the humiliation of human dignity). In 2016, in response to questions from anonymous users on the Internet portal ask.fm, he accused the “Russians” of intolerance and cowardice. We doubt the appropriateness of bringing Valiev to justice – the context suggests that he espouses anti-fascist views, and in his incriminating statement he condemned intolerance of some Russians rather than intended to humiliate ethnic Russians.

It became known In October that several residents of Belgorod were prosecuted in September under Article 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (mass distribution of extremist materials) for publishing on VKontakte the banned video “Let's Remind Crooks and Thieves about Their Manifesto-2002” created by supporters of Alexei Navalny. Alexei Lagutin and Nikolai Shirikov were fined two thousand rubles each, and Mark Morozov spent five days under arrest. In total, at least 16 people in the Belgorod Region faced responsibility for the publication of this video in 2018-2019. The video merely lists a number of unfulfilled campaign promises from the 2002 United Russia party manifesto and calls to vote for any party other than United Russia.

We also found out in October that Elena Kurkina, the head of the circus box office, was fined a thousand rubles in mid-September in Volgograd under Article 20.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (public demonstration of Nazi or extremist symbols). In 2016, Kurkina posted on a social network photos that depicted actors involved in a play about the Great Patriotic War and wearing the Third Reich uniforms.

A similar decision made in August was overturned in mid-October. Under this decision, Samara resident Alexander Kruglov, the chairman of the organizing committee of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (VKP(b)), who published three images depicting Vladimir Putin and Nazi symbols, was sentenced to a fine. The regional court sent the case for a re-trial due to procedural violations committed by the lower court.

We believe that display of Nazi symbols should only be punished if aimed at promoting Nazism. Obviously, Kurkina was not involved in Nazi propaganda but simply took some photos as a memento. Kruglov used the Nazi symbols for political polemic.

At least two people were punished in October under Article 20.1 Part 3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses for “insulting the authorities”: Alexey Zakruzhny from Chita, a stoker and a video blogger, who made rude statements about the president, and Irina Slavina (Murakhtaeva), the editor-in-chief of KozaPress, who posted on social media an obscene pun about the town of Shakhunya. At least one administrative case on “insulting the authorities” was discontinued by the police, but at least three such cases were opened in the course of the month.

In early October, the Moskovsky District Court in St. Petersburg turned down the request of North-West Transport Deputy Prosecutor to recognize as extremist material The Invasion of Ukraine. A Chronicle of Russian Aggression, a publication compiled by Dmitry Tymchuk and other staff of the Ukrainian “Information Resistance” project. The claim was based on the opinion of experts from the St. Petersburg State University, who indicated that the book “portrays Russia as an invader of foreign lands; its leadership is compared to the Nazi clique,” and “its state is compared to the Third Reich.” An expert examination appointed by the court, however, showed that the book contained only a chronology of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine in 2014-2015 and recommendations by the authors apparently addressed to those who, at the time of the book’s publication, were making decisions on the issues of Ukraine’s military strategy.

Prosecutions against Religious Organizations and Believers

As we found out in early October, at the end of the previous month, the Sverdlovsk District Court returned to the prosecutor the case of Valeria and Sergey Rayman, Jehovah's Witnesses charged under Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code Part 1 and Part 2 respectively (organizing activities of an extremist organization and participation in it). Among other issues, the court found no indication of criminal intent in the indictment and also noted that the Jehovah's Witnesses religion per se is not prohibited in Russia.

Oral arguments took place in two cases of Jehovah's Witnesses in October, and state prosecutors asked the courts to sentence the defendants, both charged under Article 282.2 Part 1 of the Criminal Code – Sergei Klimov from Tomsk and Grigory Bubnov from the Nadezhdinsky District of Primorsky Krai – to identical seven-year terms of imprisonment.

In the course of the month, we recorded new criminal cases against 28 Jehovah's Witnesses: Dmitry Ravnushkin (Petrozavodsk), Igor Tsaryov and Arthur Lokhvitsky (Birobidzhan), Dmitry Terebilov (Kostroma), Yuri and Zinaida Krutyakov, Konstantin Zherebtsov, Vitaly Nikiforov and Nikolai Yakovlev (Moscow Region), Ekaterina Pegasheva (Yoshkar-Ola), Sergey Tolstonozhenko and Tatyana Ferulyova (Krasnoyarsk), Valery Petrenko (Perm), Nikolai Kuzichkin and Vyacheslav Popov (Sochi), Andrei Andreev, Artyom and Alevtina Bagratian (Kursk), Vitaly Ilinykh (Spassk-Dalny of Primorsky Krai), Vladimir Khokhlov and Eduard Zhinzhikov (Novozybkov of the Bryansk Region), Alexander Polozov (Norilsk), Sergey Ermilov and Anton Olshevsky (Blagoveshchensk), Sergei Semeniuk and Sergey Svetonosov (Khabarovsk), Vyacheslav Ivanov and Dmitry Kulakov (Nevelsk of the Sakhalin Region).

According to our information, 45 believers were in pre-trial detention as of the end of October.

In early October, the South District Military Court sentenced Nariman Memedeminov, an activist of the Crimean Solidarity, to two and a half years in a settlement colony, finding him guilty of public calls for terrorism (Article 205.2 Part 1 of the Criminal Code). This charge was based on the fact that Memedeminov had published five videos related to the activities of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned in Russia. We watched the three videos posted on YouTube and found no calls for or justification of terrorism in any of them.

In October, the Russian Supreme Court lengthened the prison terms of two individuals involved in the Bashkirian Hizb ut-Tahrir case. Batyr Mukhametov and Bulat Rakhmanov, previously sentenced to 16 years in prison, are now sentenced to 16.5 years and 16 years and 3 months respectively. The charge was reclassified from participation in a terrorist organization (Article 205.5 part 2 of the Criminal Code) to organizing its activities (Article 205.5 part 1). The lengthy prison terms imposed in February on ten remaining defendants in the case have not changed.

We also learned about several cases of citizens being held liable for storing religious materials, which we view as inappropriately banned. Thus, thanks to the October report of the Karachay-Cherkessia Prosecutor’s Office, we learned that the Ust-Dzhegutinsky District Court fined two residents of the region, T. Aybazov and B. Borlakov, a thousand rubles each in July under Article 20.29 of the Administrative Code for keeping in their house The Future Belongs to Islam, a book by Sayyid Qutb. We found no incendiary calls in this book that could serve as the basis for its ban.

V. Vinogradov from Abakan, a follower of the Chinese spiritual practice of Falun Gong was arrested in mid-October for three days under the same article for distributing Li Hongzhi’s book Zhuan Falun in a park. This treatise was recognized as extremist in 2011 solely on the grounds that it proclaimed the superiority of Falun Gong over other teachings.

Prosecutions for Anti-Religious Statements

Yaroslav Varenik, a correspondent of the Arkhangelsk resource 29.ru, announced in late October that a report had been compiled against him under Article 5.26 part 2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (desecration of objects of religious veneration) for the adding to his VKontakte page, in 2016, a video of the song “Yekteniya 1” by the Polish black metal band Batushka. In our opinion, the prosecution against Varenik is inappropriate. The video contains footage of Orthodox worship, distorted by various superimposed effects added with a video editor. However, Varenik did not personally desecrate any objects of worship, and, in our opinion, the very fact of desecration was absent altogether; the objects of worship were not actually affected in any way. However, Novgorod resident Daniil Sukachyov was fined under the same article in 2017 for publishing this video.