The appeal of the “Soviet deputy” is recognized as extremist material

It is forbidden to appeal not to interfere with the election of "Soviet deputies".

On July 12, 2022, the Federal List of Extremist Materials included a text entitled "Appeal of the People's Deputy of the USSR Yu.A. Slepnev to the citizens of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." The decision to ban it was made on April 21 by the Novokuybyshevsky City Court of the Samara Region.

Yuri Alekseevich Slepnev in 1990-1993 was a member of the Novokuibyshevsk City Council. His deputy past became one of the instruments of legitimation among "citizens of the USSR" - a community known as the "Novokuibyshev All-Russian Central Executive Committee" (and more recently using the names "Union of Soviet Socialist Regions", "Union of Soviet Bright Clans"). An appeal to "citizens of the USSR" was distributed by this group on October 15, 2020. In it, Slepnev retroactively announced the start of the August 18, 2019 elections to the "councils of people's deputies", calling on the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the armed forces to facilitate the elections. Slepnev proposed to consider all persons holding public office, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and military personnel who would oppose the elections as perjurers and traitors to the Motherland, subject to trial under Art. 64 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (which provided for punishments up to the death penalty).

In May 2021, Slepnev was fined 10 thousand rubles for this appeal under Art. 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (inciting hatred or enmity). In 2022, similar fines were imposed on V. Kudryavtseva , who sent the text of the appeal to the Syzran branch of the Air Force Academy, and Rustam Dadabaev from the village of Prosvet, Volzhsky District, Samara Region, who handed the leaflet to the police officers. In addition, as indicated in the decision to recognize the material as extremist, "citizens of the USSR" sent Slepnev's appeal to the Sberbank branch, police departments in Samara and the region, as well as to the administration of the Bezenchuksky district.

The grounds for both bringing the distributors to administrative responsibility and for recognizing the material as extremist were a linguistic study of the Samara Federal Security Service and a comprehensive psychological and linguistic study of the ANO Center for the Promotion of Humanitarian Expertise "Independent Expert". A study by the FSB showed that Slepnev's appeal contains statements aimed at inciting hatred or enmity against employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Russian armed forces: "a threat against these groups, creating a negative image of groups characterizing groups as enemies ("traitors to the Motherland", "perjurers" ) ". The specialist considered that the elections themselves, on the basis of the laws of the USSR, would be illegal, which means that countering them would be part of the official duties of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and employees of the Armed Forces. At the same time, he noted that the statement on the application to Art. 64 of the Criminal Code, which provided for the death penalty, indicates that we are talking about the threat of violent acts.

According to the conclusion of ANO "Independent Expert", the text of the appeal contains linguistic and psychological signs of an incitement to forcible change in the foundations of the constitutional order. According to the authors of the study, Slepnev encouraged the servicemen to provide " power support " to the "elections", that is, to commit an armed rebellion. Experts found in this text both linguistic and psychological signs of a threat to commit violent acts.

We noted earlier that we doubt the validity of bringing "citizens of the USSR" to justice under Art. 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses for the distribution of this appeal; Nor are we convinced of the justification of his ban. We did not find direct calls for violence in Slepnev's appeal. The threat of violence from the side of the court, which can hypothetically be established by some kind of "restored" government of the USSR, is difficult to recognize as serious, especially since the "Novokuibyshev All-Russian Central Executive Committee" was not seen to be involved in violent actions. It should also be borne in mind that representatives of law enforcement agencies should be extremely tolerant of criticism, if it is not a real threat of violence (which has been repeatedly noted by the European   Court of Human Rights).

Sources

• Extremist materials // Website of the Ministry of Justice of Russia. 2022. July 12.
• Case card No. 2a-933/2022 ~ M-577/2022 // Website of the Novokuybyshevsky city court of the Samara region. 2022. June 3.