Administrative case of inciting hatred against employees of the Russian Guard has been discontinued

The prosecutor's office terminated the case initiated under Art. 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses due to the publication of the video. This happened after Voronezh experts came to the conclusion that the employees of the National Guard are not a social group, and there were no signs of inciting hostility in the video.

On February 26, 2020, the head of the Agora international human rights group, Pavel Chikov, announced that the prosecutor's office of the Ramonsky district of the Voronezh region had terminated the administrative case initiated under Art. 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (inciting hatred or enmity) in relation to the video blogger Pavel Sychev.

The case was opened at the end of 2019. The reason for the administrative prosecution was the video that Sychev published on his Youtube channel. In it, he spoke about the rally "Let's Reclaim Our Right to Elections", which took place in Moscow on August 3, 2019, namely about the violence by the National Guard against the demonstrators, as well as about the lack of identification badges on the security forces. Sychev sharply characterized law enforcement officers, but does not call for violence against them.

Experts of the ANO "Center for Sociocultural Expertise" found in the publication signs of " incitement of hatred and enmity, humiliation of the honor and dignity of employees of the Russian Guard " and " statements of a public nature aimed at negatively assessing the social group of law enforcement officers ." A linguistic examination, conducted at the request of a lawyer in the Voronezh Regional Forensic Center of the Ministry of Justice of Russia, showed that "the employees of the Russian Guard are not a social group," and in Sychev's video "there are no linguistic and psychological signs of humiliation, incitement of hostility . " After that, the case was closed.

We welcome the end of the persecution of Sychev, as we considered him to be unlawful. From our point of view, such a professional group as law enforcement officers, from our point of view, does not need special protection from hatred within the framework of anti-extremist legislation, although it may be protected by other norms. In addition, we advocate the exclusion of the vague term "social group" from anti-extremist articles.

Sources

• In Voronezh, the prosecutor's office did not recognize the National Guard as a social group and dropped the extremism case. Pavel Chikov's message in Telegram. February 26, 2020