"Create the illusion of unanimity." Deputy Shishlov, "discreditator" of the Russian army

The deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg Alexander Shishlov was accused of "discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation abroad." The reason for the preparation of protocols on an administrative offense was his posts on the VKontakte social network. This is the first time that such an accusation is made against a deputy of the "apple -bering" of the regional level. The correspondent of the North. Realia found out that it was not so with the examination in the case of Shishlov.

The track record of the deputy of Shishlov is impressive: he is a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, a member of the St. Petersburg Union of Scientists, since 1990 a deputy of the Leningrad City Council, in 1994–95-director of the programs of the St. Petersburg Humanitarian and Political Center "Strategy". Deputy of the State Duma II and III convocations. In 2002–2003 he was a member of the government commissions on education and scientific and innovative policy. In 1996–2003, he worked in PACE as a member of the PACE commission on legal issues and human rights, as well as the deputy chairman of the group of liberals, democrats and reformers. From 2005 to 2012, Alexander Shishlov was busy with diplomatic work. From 2012 to 2021, he was an authorized person for human rights in St. Petersburg, in 2015 Shishlov was elected vice president of the European Institute of Ombudsman. In September 2021, he left the position of Ombudsman in connection with the election to the deputies of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg.

The first episode, which attracted the attention of law enforcement officers, concerns his behavior at a meeting of the parliament. "In the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, a minute of silence was arranged today in connection with the death of the leader of the LDPR Vladimir Zhirinovsky ... Only yesterday in St. Petersburg, two more military personnel who died in Ukraine were buried ... I believe that the initiative to honor the politician who for many years fired hatred and aggression, pushed to war, is hypocritical and inappropriate in the St. Petersburg parliament,", which was hypocritical, " - wrote Alexander Shishlov. He does not agree with the accusations formulated in the protocol.

“This is another act of persecution of Yabloko, a political party that takes a position that is different from the position of all five parliamentary parties, and since I head the party’s faction in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly and I am a member of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko, I do not separate myself from the party in this case,” says Alexander Shishlov to the North North correspondent. - Yes, I did not participate in the minute of silence in the memory of Zhirinovsky, who very often called for war, I believe that it was not necessary to conduct it.

The second episode of the prosecution is based on a politician statement regarding the St. George tape. “Now the meaning of the St. George’s tape has changed. When it is folded by the letter Z - doesn’t it desecrate the national symbol and does not discredit it? I believe that today the giving state status of the St. George tape is inappropriate. It can lead to new conflicts in society and new criminal cases against dissenters,” Alexander Shishlov wrote on his page in Vkontakte. According to him, he did this when a federal bill on the giving the Georgian tape of the status of a state symbol was discussed in the Commission on the Culture of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly.

“In my opinion, now this is an inappropriate initiative,” Shishlov explains. - Yes, we can say that it used to be a folk symbol, but now everything has changed, and I believe that this symbol crosses its connection with the letter Z.

The protocol on an administrative offense against a launch deputy was drawn up on the basis of an expert opinion made at the request of the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office as an assistant professor at the Department of the Criminal Procedure of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after A. I. Herzen V.A. Abakanova. The prosecutor's office raised three questions to the expert: 1. Is the above information ( posts of Alexander Shishlov. - SR ) ... to a negative assessment of the activities of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation? 2. Does the above information create a negative image of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation? 3. Is the above information ( posts of Alexander Shishlova. - SR ) ... to discredit the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in order to protect the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens, to maintain international peace and security, provided that this information is distributed among the general public?

For all three questions, expert Abakanova gives a positive answer. "The arbitrary interpretation of the significance of the St. George tape discredits the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in a military special operation," she writes, however, without revealing the mechanism of how exactly discrediting occurs. The formation of the same negative assessment, according to Abakanova, is aimed at "deliberate contrasting the veneration of the memory of the leader of the LDPR of Zhirinovsky and the dead military personnel during the military special operation." The expert’s conclusion is unequivocal: in the texts of Shishlov, “there is a focus of the author’s intent to public discredit the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and destabilizing the situation in the country.”

Alexander Shishlov himself considers this examination absurd.

- It is very sad to see how a representative of a respected university is trying to adapt to the formulations of recently adopted so -called laws on fakes and discredit, which, from my point of view, limit our constitutional rights to freedom of speech and information. When a person who teaches students gives out such conclusions, this is a sad sign. Bitter emotions are also caused by the fact that the police, which should be the law enforcement agency, is increasingly forced to solve the political problems of intimidation and persecution of dissenters.

The doctor of historical sciences Irina Levinskaya , who participated as an expert in many criminal processes, also agree with this position. First of all, she draws attention to the fact that the examination was written by a candidate of legal sciences.

- The question arises: since when did our lawyers start contacting lawyers to resolve such issues, including linguistic? - Levinskaya is perplexed. - Does the lawyer Abakanova have special knowledge in that area? We have a law on expert activity, where it is written in black and white that the examination is turning to specialists with knowledge that lawyers do not have. That is, from the very beginning, such an examination is unlawful, it has no right to exist. After all, why do lawyers seek expert help to philologists, psychologists, historians? Because they themselves do not have special knowledge that these specialists possess. And here the expert Abakanova judges linguistic issues in which she simply does not understand anything. She has neither an explanation of the meaning of words, nor disclosure of the context, and this is mandatory for a linguistic examination.

As an example, Levinskaya cites that fragment of the examination of Abakanova, where she explores the phrase "the so -called special operation". This "clearly indicates the expression of irony and a neglect of the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and therefore negatively evaluates the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation," said Abakanova.

- To begin with, it was necessary to just open the dictionaries and see what the phrase "so -called" means. Its first meaning is the synonym for the words "called", and only the second meaning, and then only in certain contexts, has the meaning that Abakanova tries to attribute to him. Her examination consists of a pile of ideological maxims, but there is no analysis in it.

In addition, in the text of the examination of Abakanova there is no subscription about liability for the dacha of a deliberately false conclusion, and this is a very serious violation, since in this case the expert does not bear any responsibility for his conclusions.

The charges of the human rights Council of St. Petersburg , a member of the Presidential Council under the President of the Russian Federation Natalia Evdokimova , was also outraged by accusations against Alexander Shchelov.

- This is very important when the main human rights activist of the city openly and publicly acts in defense of the political rights of citizens, participates as an observer in all mass events, writes letters and appeals, makes reports and special forces about different events. I understand that one Shishlov clearly would not have restrained the situation with the military operations that we now see, but I am sure that he would protect the rights of both military personnel and refugees, and no regional authorized person raises his head now. And he, when we had the beatings of citizens in protests, ensured that the head of the St. Petersburg Ministry of Internal Affairs Plugin accepted him and listen, says Evdokimova.

Alexander Shishlov contributed to writing a detailed report on the acceleration of the column of the United Democrats on the demonstration permitted by the authorities on May 1, 2019, and after a year of Evdokimov together with ShiShoslov, they tried to organize an exit meeting of the HRC, dedicated to compliance with the political rights of citizens in St. Petersburg - regarding the beating of rallies in defense of Alexei Navalny.

- Then Alexander Vladimirovich turned a lot to law enforcement agencies, urged them to meet and figure it out. Remember Margarita Yudin, whom the riot police hit his stomach? Alexander Vladimirovich told me how he achieved that this riot police would be found, and how he was made to understand that they would not be given the perpetrator - and I realized that it was then that law enforcement officers completely stopped communicating with human rights defenders, ”says Evdokimova. - And Alexander Vladimirovich has always been and is available to everyone, he can always call him, people who turned to him never remained unanswered.

The deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg Boris Vishnevsky considers the administrative production, begun in relation to Alexander Shishlov as a continuation of the persecution of the opposition, and absurdly organized.

- The fact that he is charged with, no signs of what is regarded as discrediting the Russian armed forces is close and close. The examination was made by the teacher of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after Herzen Veronika Abakanova - it is necessary that this name sounds, so that people know who should not give a hand at the meeting, - notes Boris Vishnevsky. - This, in my opinion, is not a conclusion, but a political denunciation, filled with speculation, distortion, issuing the desired for the real one. For example, it is difficult for me to understand how the assessment of Zhirinovsky’s activity, who has incurred hatred and aggression in relation to other countries all his life, can discredit our armed forces, nevertheless, Mrs. Abakanova confidently draws this conclusion. During a minute of silence, Shishlov refused to get into his memory - and I wouldn’t get up either, I was just in the hospital that day. In general, the absurdity of the accusation is obvious to me. The next step, apparently, would "badly thought about what was ordered to call a special operation." Nevertheless, in the other day, in Veliky Novgorod, the head of our city organization, the former military pilot Viktor Shalyakin, the court nevertheless justified the discredit case.

According to Vishnevsky, the purpose of such processes is to create the illusion of unanimity in the country, which can only be achieved by punishment for the expression of any opinion that does not coincide with the official one.

-And if such a status person as Shishlov, a deputy, in the past, the diplomat and the Commissioner for Human Rights, falls under these accusations, what is the ordinary citizen to do, he is not protected at all. It remains only to put the head in the sand and be silent, ”says Vishnevsky.

The court session has not yet been scheduled. Alexander Shishlov intends to make this process as public as possible. The first violations in the preparation of the process were already recorded by the lawyer Leonid Krikun defending him.

“Today ... Employees of the Petrograd Ministry of Internal Affairs tried to receive a subscription from me about the data of an administrative investigation excited against Alexander Shishlov ,” the cricun wrote on his Facebook page. “Whoever is not aware, this is not such a norm in the Code of Administrative Offenses, this is not the Code of Code of Code of Code of Code of Administrative Offenses. Of course, I refused to give such a subscription ... I believe that an attempt was attempted to create a dangerous a precedent that can be used to limit the rights of the advocacy as a whole. " In general, Krikun believes, "negative consequences from publicizing the prosecution of a public and respected citizen accountable for the expressed opinion" may exceed the effect of the repressive measures that the authorities are counting on.

The bill on responsibility for fakes, discrediting the use by the authorities of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation abroad and calls for sanctions against Russian citizens and organizations of the State Duma approved on March 4, 2022. Articles 207.3 ("Public distribution of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation") and 280.3 appeared in the Criminal Code ("Public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation ... including public calls to prevent the use of the RF Armed Forces"), Article 20.3.3 appeared with the same composition of violations. In the first two months after the entry into force of new laws in Russia, about two thousand cases were instituted to discredit the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, by mid -July, the number of such cases exceeded 3 thousand, of which there were more than half of them at the moment.

28 protocols on the discrediting of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation were drawn up on Yablochnikov, including a member of the Federal Political Committee of the Party, the leader of the Pskov "Yabloko" Leo Schlosberg and the municipal deputies of Nikolai Kuzmin, Andrei Moreva and Nodari Hananashvili.