The ECHR has ruled on a complaint against the ban on the book Zhuan Falun and three other materials from the Falun Gong movement.

The European Court held that the ban on Falun Gong materials violated Art. 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, guaranteeing the right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion.

On January 31, 2023, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) published a ruling on the complaints of the followers of the spiritual movement "Falun Gong" Mikhail Sinitsyn and Sergey Alekhin on the recognition of four materials of the movement as extremist materials. The applicants pointed out that their rights guaranteed by Art. 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights - on freedom of religion and freedom of expression.

Falun Gong (Falun Dafa) is a new religious movement built around the practice of qigong gymnastics combined with elements of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. It is banned and persecuted in China; in turn, adherents of the doctrine abroad sharply criticize the Chinese authorities.

Sinitsyn and Alekhin challenged the decision of the Pervomaisky District Court of Krasnodar, adopted on October 27, 2011, to ban four materials: a treatise by the founder of the movement, Li Hongzhi, "Zhuan Falun", a report on verification of allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong followers in China, and brochures " Falun Dafa in the World" and "World Human Rights Torch Relay". On December 22, 2011, this decision was approved by the regional court, and then by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. We consider the prohibition of these materials unlawful.

Recall that the Pervomaisky District Court recognized the materials of "Falun Gong" as extremist, based on the opinion of experts who considered that these texts contain "statements expressing a negative assessment, hostile attitude towards specific religious groups and religious and philosophical trends", that they form a negative impression about China and its socio-political system, and also criticize Buddhism, other Eastern religions and various schools of the qigong system. The experts also drew attention to the fact that in the materials of the movement there is a symbol widespread in the east - a left-sided swastika, which they considered similar to Nazi symbols to the point of confusion “in the perception of Europeans” (with a request to clarify this issue, and also to recognize the provision of the law as inconsistent with the Constitution on countering extremist activity, which refers to such propaganda of the superiority of one's own religion over others, Alekhin subsequently unsuccessfully appealed to the Russian Constitutional Court).

Considering the complaint of the followers of the Falun Gong movement, the ECHR relied on earlier decisions on the complaint “Ibragim Ibragimov and Others v. Russia” on the ban of Said Nursi’s books as extremist materials and “Dmitrievsky v. Russia” on the criminal prosecution of Stanislav Dmitrievsky, editor-in-chief of the Pravo-Zaschita publication under the article on inciting hatred or enmity (part 2 of article 282 of the Criminal Code) due to publications in the newspaper.

The European Court of Justice disagreed with the Russian government in stating that Sinitsyn and Alekhin's complaint was inadmissible as being contrary to Art. 17 of the Convention, since the materials of "Falun Gong" incite religious hatred: according to the ECtHR, the reference to Art. 17 is relevant only in exceptional cases, for example, when it comes to mass killings motivated by hatred.

The ECtHR pointed out that when considering the case, the Russian courts did not apply the standards based on Art. 10 of the Convention on Human Rights. They did not assess the need to ban the materials, given their nature and the context of publication, and did not raise the issue of the impact of the ban on the applicants' rights. As in the case of the ban on the writings of Said Nursi, the courts did not analyze the form, content and context of the specific statements that caused them claims in connection with inciting religious hatred, limiting themselves to retelling the general conclusions of the experts, to which they treated uncritically. It was not specified which passages were meant and in what way they assert the superiority of the followers of the movement over the rest or incite enmity towards them. The ECHR, with reference to the complaint Dmitrievsky v. Russia, also recalled that the legal issue of whether a particular material is extremist should be decided exclusively by the courts themselves, and not by experts who do not have legal qualifications.

Thus, the Strasbourg Court concluded that the ban on Falun Gong materials violated the applicants' right to freedom of expression in connection with their religion, i.e. Russia in this case committed a violation of Art. 10 of the Convention in the light of Art. 9, and ordered the state to pay Sinitsyn and Alekhin 7,500 euros each as compensation for non-pecuniary damage and 3,096 euros for both of them as compensation for legal costs.

It should be noted that although Russia refused to comply with the decisions of the ECtHR issued after March 15, 2022, the Convention prescribes otherwise: according to Part 2 of Art. 58, denunciation does not release a party from its obligations in respect of any act which could be a breach of such obligations and was committed by it before the effective date of the denunciation.

Let us also remind that Falun Gong followers in Russia have been repeatedly fined for distributing the materials mentioned above. And on November 10, 2020, the Fifth Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction in an appeal satisfied the claim of the Prosecutor of the Republic of Khakassia to liquidate and recognize as extremist the Khakass regional public organization for the spiritual and physical self-improvement of a person under the Great Law of Falun "Falun Dafa", recognizing the organization guilty of distributing these very materials. A little earlier, on July 20, 2020, the Prosecutor General's Office declared the activities of seven foreign and international Falun Dafa organizations undesirable in Russia.

Sources

• Judgement in the case of Sinitsyn and Alekhin v. Russia // European Court of Human Rights. 2018. 28 August. 2023. 31 January.