A trial against administrators of criminally oriented public pages starts in Yekaterinburg

The case of residents of Yekaterinburg, accused under Art. 280 and 282.1 of the Criminal Code, referred to the court.

On December 10, 2019, the Yekaterinburg Garrison Military Court will begin considering a criminal case on the activities of publics on the VKontakte social network and a criminal Instagram account. A married couple, Nikolai and Nina from Yekaterinburg, were charged under Part 2 of Art. 280 of the Criminal Code (public calls for extremism via the Internet) and ch. 1 and 2 Art. 282.1 of the Criminal Code (organization of an extremist community and participation in it); another defendant in the case is their friend Artem Zuev. Since May 2018, by decision of the Verkh-Isetsky District Court, men have been under arrest in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center in Moscow, a woman raising a one-year-old child has been placed under house arrest.

Recall that contract serviceman Nikolai and his girlfriend (currently his wife) Nina, who worked as a cashier, administered the public pages "A.U.E" and "✵Sh✵P✵A✵N✵A✵" (now they are blocked). Their friend Artem Zuev administered the community "✵✵✵Free Master✵✵✵Shop of Interests✵✵✵", and together with his brother organized the work of the printing shop "Absolute". According to the defendant, they all considered this activity exclusively as a side job. However, according to the central apparatus of the FSB, which investigated the case, she became a supporter of the " ideology of violence against law enforcement officers" Arrested Urkagan Unity " " and no later than February 2017 joined the A.U.E. community headed by her future husband. She is blamed for the administration of the "A.U.E" and "✵Sh✵P✵A✵N✵A✵" publics, the sale through them, as well as through the page of the "Absolut" workshop and the Instagram account "bacota.aye" " products with the symbols of the "Prisoner Urkagan Unity" movement "in order to " popularize the ideology " and " get the profit necessary for the functioning of the extremist community "In addition, the investigation believes that between April 18 and May 27, 2017, she published 14 entries calling for violence against police and FSB officers.

Nikolai and Artem Zuev pleaded guilty, Nina pleads not guilty, she is defended by the lawyer of the Agora International Human Rights Group.

The ideology of the underworld (and the "A.U.E." subculture) is oriented towards illegal activities and is conceptually incompatible with the realization of citizens' constitutional rights. However, this ideology is not political and is not aimed at changing the constitutional order. Therefore, we believe that activities to popularize this ideology should not be the subject of anti-extremist legal regulation, although in principle it can be criminalized. Perhaps, for the organizers of structures that exploit criminal topics and incite violence, a new criminal norm should be provided, similar in composition to Part 1 of Art. 239 of the Criminal Code (creation of a public association whose activities involve violence against citizens).

Sources

• Pavel Chikov's message in Telegram. November 29, 2019