In St. Petersburg, the decision to initiate a criminal case on the fact of applying graffiti with Navalny to a transformer booth was canceled

The decision to initiate the case was declared illegal and unfounded.

On June 4, 2021, the lawyer of one of the suspects in the criminal case of graffiti with Alexei Navalny in St. Petersburg announced that the decision to initiate the case had been cancelled.

Let us remind you that the case is under Part 2 of Art. 214 of the Criminal Code (vandalism committed by a group of persons motivated by political enmity) was initiated on April 29, 2021 due to the application of graffiti with a portrait of Navalny and the inscription “Hero of New Time” on a transformer booth in the Petrogradsky district. The image appeared on the booth on the night of April 27-28, 2021 and was immediately painted over by utility services.

As lawyer Maria Belyaeva, cooperating with OVD-Info, explained, the investigator made such a decision; the decision to initiate a case in connection with graffiti was declared illegal and unfounded. Her client emphasized during interrogation that the graffiti had nothing to do with inciting political or ideological hatred. “First of all, it was an act of showing mercy and compassion to a person who returned to his country knowing that he would be sent to prison. Thus, it was important for my client to support him as a person. And a very important point that we celebrated throughout the whole interaction with law enforcement agencies, the graffiti was not an act of vandalism, it was very beautiful,” Belyaeva said.

We fully agree that the image of Alexey Navalny making a heart shape with his hands and the caption to this image did not contain any signs of inciting political hostility. In addition, we doubt the legitimacy of the existence of a motive of political and ideological hatred or enmity in the article about vandalism. Indeed, in essence, an act such as vandalism is a composite act: on the one hand, we are talking about causing material damage, and on the other, about the very public statement made in such a way that damage was caused. Accordingly, vandalism motivated by hatred is such damage to an object that is motivated by one or another enmity, which can be revealed (and is usually revealed) in the content of the “statement” made by the vandal. Thus, in this component, vandalism motivated by hatred is close to another illegal act - inciting hatred. However, actions aimed at inciting political or ideological hatred do not constitute an offense or crime under Art. 20.3.1 Code of Administrative Offenses or 282 of the Criminal Code. Such actions, unless they involve violence, are indistinguishable from legal political struggle, which involves competition between political platforms and leaders. Therefore, we are inclined to believe that it is appropriate to classify the motives of political and ideological hostility as aggravating circumstances only in articles on the use of violence.

Finally, we noted in connection with this episode that Art. 214 of the Criminal Code is often used in cases where the damage to property is not too serious. We believe that in many cases when it is impossible to dismiss a case of vandalism due to insignificance, it would be appropriate to limit ourselves to administrative prosecution. To do this, it would be possible to introduce into the Code of Administrative Offenses an article similar to Art. 7.17 of the Code of Administrative Offenses on the destruction or damage of someone else’s property, or clarify this article itself by including vandalism that did not cause major damage.

Sources

• The St. Petersburg prosecutor's office refused to initiate a criminal case due to graffiti with Navalny // OVD-Info. 2021. June 4.