Yoshkarolinsk resident was fined for AUE symbols from a post about an attack on a deputy • Sova • RIMA

Yoshkarolinsk resident was fined for AUE symbols from a post about an attack on a deputy

Alexey Seregin was fined for the picture that accompanied the post about the attack on the State Duma deputy.

On July 27, 2021, the Yoshkar-Ola city court fined 1,500 rubles under Part 1 of Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (public demonstration of the symbols of an extremist organization) Alexei Seregin, press secretary of the National Democratic Party in the Republic of Mari El.

The reason was a picture with the inscription "A.U.E." and an eight-pointed star, published on August 10, 2019 and found in the "Photos" section of Seregin's VKontakte page. According to the activist, this picture accompanied a post on his wall that teenagers attacked State Duma deputy Boris Chernyshov. “Ten peculiar people came up, started molesting the volunteer girl, shouting something in the AUE format,” the deputy said then. In the “Photos” section, however, the text of the post was not preserved, and therefore the court decided that “some There are no user explanations for this image, the user does not express any negative attitude towards this image.

Seregin told the court that he wanted to show with his publication that the AUE symbols had a negative impact on the population. He is appealing against the court order.

We believe that Seregin was wrongfully brought to justice. From our point of view, prosecution under Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses is appropriate in the case of using prohibited symbols to promote the relevant ideology. Seregin did not promote AUE, but only illustrated the message about the actions of representatives of this criminal subculture. We also note that, although we have no doubts about the illegal nature of the activities of the AUE subculture, we believe that it is incorrect to use anti-extremist legal mechanisms to counter it (for more details, see here ) .

Sources

The journalist was fined because of the symbols of "AUE" in a repost condemning supporters of the subculture // OVD-Info. 2021. July 29.
Case card No. 5-2841/2021 // Website of the Yoshkar-Ola City Court of the Republic of Mari El. 2021. July 28.