The court approved a fine for the All-Tatar Community Center due to criticism of amendments to the Constitution

The Supreme Court of Tatarstan dismissed the appeal of the All-Tatar Public Center (VTOC) against a fine of 250,000 rubles. This is reported by the publication "Activation".

“This is an attempt to finally destroy the oldest Tatar organization. The result is expected. There is no independent court in Tatarstan for a long time. Everyone knows that we are engaged in the protection of the Tatar language and identity on a volunteer basis, we have no property, no funding, as well as funds to pay this fine. But we will fight - we are filing an appeal with the court in Samara, ”the leader of the VTOC, Farit Zakiev, told Activtika.

The court left unchanged the decision of the Vakhitovsky District Court of Kazan, which in December found the VTOC guilty under the article on inciting hatred or enmity (Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses).

The reason for the case was an appeal to the State Council of Tatarstan at a rally on October 15, 2021, dedicated to the Day of Remembrance . The appeal was read by one of the members of the WTOTS Presidium, Abdullazyan Zalyalov. It contained criticism of the amendments to the Constitution, according to which the Russians received the status of a "state-forming people."

According to the prosecutor's office , the appeal was planned by the organizers of the rally, and the text may contain "the presence of a hostile context" in relation to the Russians and "the opposition of Russians and Tatars as a" state-forming "and" colonized "peoples." WTOC Chairman Farit Zakiyev declared the organization's innocence, since he organized the rally as a private person, and Zalyalov read out an appeal on his own initiative.

• The All-Tatar Public Center is a large nationalist organization in Tatarstan. For a long time, representatives of the center sought the independence of the republic, and recently the activists of the organization have mainly advocated the protection of the Tatar language and national culture. In October 2021, the Ministry of Justice, at the request of the prosecutor's office of the Republic of Tatarstan, suspended the activities of the VTOC, this decision stood in the appeal instance in mid-January. In addition, there is a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Tatarstan to recognize the VTOC as an extremist organization.