“Any disloyal organizations in today’s Russia are at risk”

Alexander Verkhovsky has led the SOVA information and analytical center since 2002. In April 2023, the court, following a lawsuit from the Russian Ministry of Justice, liquidated the organization. Two weeks ago, the appellate court approved this decision. Nevertheless, human rights activists continue their work - since August 17, they decided to “work as a community of researchers called the Sova Research Center.”

Alexander Verkhovsky is 61 years old. Journalist, editor, programmer, publicist. In 1988-1989 he was a member of the democratic and human rights organization “Civic Dignity”. He was a co-founder and editor of the samizdat “Panorama”. Since 1994, he has been researching political extremism in Russia, and since 1997 he has been studying the connections between religion and politics in the country.

In 2002, he headed the information and analytical center “Sova” (created jointly by employees of the Panorama Research Center and MHG). In 2012–2022, he was a member of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for the development of civil society and human rights.

In April of this year, the court, following a lawsuit from the Russian Ministry of Justice, decided to liquidate the SOVA information and analytical center.

— Does the fight against “extremism” in Russia have distinctive features?

— Russian anti-extremist legislation is very broad. And it continues to expand, that is, it covers more and more new actions, describing them as extremist. The question is how this relates to real threats to security: state and public. Well, for example, provoking riots, or pogroms, or murders. Or taking these actions. Because all this is possible - and in our very recent history, everything happened. Therefore, the question is always - not only in Russia - how to determine the degree of social danger of an act when it is time to take action.

If we are talking about violent crimes that are committed based on hatred, hostility towards an ethnic group, racial or religious, then they are punished somewhat more severely. Because this is like a more socially dangerous [act] - it affects not only the victims, but also the entire group, it intimidates these people. In Germany this is explained by the presence of base motives.

As for real criminal activity, here everything is the same as in Europe. If we are talking about punishment for statements, then at first everything was theoretically quite similar. The article “Incitement to hatred” exists in all European countries without exception. It literally doesn't exist only in the Vatican. And everywhere we mean not only calls for violence, but incitement to hostility. The question is always how to determine which angry, aggressive, uncivil statements are already dangerous enough to be prosecuted. This issue cannot be written down in its entirety in the Criminal Code, because it is difficult. But this can be explained to the courts so that they apply these laws judiciously: not too broadly and not too narrowly.

Such explanations also exist from our Supreme Court. Another thing is that this affects judicial practice every now and then. That is, the court must take into account not only what was literally said, but also whether it is similar to what is written as part of the article of the Criminal Code: for example, is it aimed at inciting hostility? Maybe it was directed. Then it is also important who said it, to whom it was said, under what circumstances; how large the audience was. All these are important things that, in principle, can be easily clarified in court. There would be a desire.

— What is the role of denunciations when considering such cases?

“In principle, when people are judged for public statements, what really matters is how widespread they were. If two people knew about them, then obviously it does not pose a public danger, even if one of them reported it to the police. And if it is widely known, then most likely the police will find out about it themselves. Although, perhaps, she will still need a scammer, an informant. And there is nothing special about this either. For example, a person spoke at some rally, but there were no police people there. He called for a pogrom to go to the neighboring village. A person who was present at the rally immediately called about this, saying: “Look what’s going on here.”

I am describing a model situation - this could happen in any European country. Another thing is that in most cases this is not what we are talking about. We are talking about a very large number of cases of statements on the Internet that were addressed to a very small audience. The point is not that [this was done] on the Internet, but that the speaker had really few readers. If he hadn’t been under someone’s control, or if someone hadn’t reported it to the police, there would never have been consequences in his life. And that means it's so insignificant...

— What limit has the development of “anti-extremist” legislation in Russia reached? When will his “improvement” stop? Maybe they will start changing or eliminating some articles? Is this a political issue?

- Certainly. This is essentially political legislation. Unfortunately, no one is going to cancel anything. On the contrary, more and more new additions are appearing.

— What is the point: to prevent crime, the evolution of views?

— The state can hardly set such a goal - to prevent the evolution of views by force of criminal prosecution. I think it has neither theoretically nor practically such a goal. The goal is to prevent the spread of what it—the state—considers inflammatory propaganda.

The problem is that inflammatory propaganda is interpreted quite broadly. If we compare with an average European democratic country... There are also cases in which people were sentenced, including to prison terms, for public statements. But the danger of this statement is really appreciated. And if it turns out that it can incite some groups of people to actions that will endanger public safety, then measures are taken. This may include a criminal case. We resort to this much more easily - and the further, the easier.

There are really an awful lot of people who incite hatred. If they were all brought [to justice], there would be an order of magnitude more cases. But no one does this. The authorities somehow choose, often by chance. In the last few years, calls for terrorist or extremist activities have become the most common. At the same time, the definition of extremist activity is very broad, it takes up about a page. Therefore, calls for extremism are also a very broad area. And it’s enough not to even call for terrorist activities. There may even be a justification for such activity. That is, not “let’s do this,” but “it’s good when they do this.” Or “so-and-so did the right thing by blowing up...”. This will also constitute a crime. Can this statement be considered in a democratic country? Maybe. But the point is not only in the statement itself, but also in the circumstances, the influence of the speaker, and the size of the audience.

We now have a lot of cases about the justification of terrorism, which really [excite] for one post in one paragraph. Is it good to praise a terrorist act? It's probably better to control yourself. But at the same time, the public danger is clearly exaggerated.

— In Russia there is a “list of extremist materials.” How typical is this for other countries?

— I won’t say that this is our know-how, because medieval Europe knew very well the lists of prohibited materials. It seems that it was only in the 20th century that the Catholic list of prohibited books was abolished. And not because the church began to think that these books were good, but because they realized that times had changed; and the presence of these books on the list does not in any way limit their distribution.

But the authors of our legislation have not yet reached this simple idea: that banning a book as extremist does not lead to the fact that it cannot be distributed. The book can simply be republished again - and it will be a different book. Change, for example, the cover color. There was a real case: the preface was replaced, and the new book ceased to be an element of the list; it can be completely legally distributed. You can ban some video on the Internet, but any tech-savvy young person will make about 15 slightly different versions of such videos and post them in different places - these will be different videos, not the one that is banned. And no prosecutor’s office or court will ever keep up with this guy.

— Are there exceptions to this list? If yes, then how?

- There were such authors - they acted stubbornly, went to court. This, naturally, may worry the publisher - even more than the author. Because — no matter how funny — the author, so to speak, is not entitled to anything for the authorship of extremist material. It is not illegal to be the author of extremist material. It is illegal to distribute in bulk. There are many such cases—hundreds every year—but their number has begun to decline. And the growth of this list has been slowing down for quite some time. The prosecutor's office realized that this was a rather pointless exercise. They are mainly interested in the ability to block such materials on the Internet. There the count goes into tens of thousands.

— There was a story when the current Minister of Internal Policy of Mari El (then he was a deputy at the republican level) was going to take part in the elections to the State Duma. But he couldn’t, because shortly before the start of the election campaign he was fined for distributing a so-called extremist video. Is this a common occurrence?

— The fine is small, but the person is deprived of the right to be elected. He could have posted this God knows when, but he was punished now. This is a defect in our administrative code. If this were a criminal case, it would be impossible: there is an explanation from the Supreme Court that the moment of commission of a crime involving some kind of public statement is the moment of publication, if we are talking about the Internet. And all procedural deadlines are counted from this time. And in the administrative code, the starting point for all deadlines is the moment the offense is discovered.

— How many times must it be repeated, whose attention must be attracted in order to talk about such inconsistencies in the laws?

- To whom, I know - President Putin. All our decisions are very strongly centered on it. In fact, we've talked a lot about how law enforcement is pretty ridiculous in a lot of cases. We did not say that all this should be abolished, because, firstly, it is politically impossible, and secondly, it would be wrong.

But there is something that I think, yes, it needs to be cancelled. For example, this very list of extremist materials, because it’s just a meaningless thing. Yes, there are a bunch of books and videos that are absolutely cannibalistic. But the fact that they were banned (included in this list), unfortunately, does not at all interfere with the evil that they bring. Therefore, yes, we need to cancel it and stop suffering. The norms we are talking about do not need to be abolished. Maybe we need to reform it somehow. Because they are - give or take - the same as in democratic countries. They have flaws, they can be significant. We tried to draw attention to this, gave examples, appealing not to the fact that this contradicts democratic values ​​(this is probably a weak argument), but to the fact that this is a senseless waste of state resources and does not contribute to any security.

When I say “we,” I mean that it’s not just the Sova center—it’s a large number of people, and their number has been increasing. We were not talking about political repression, but about the fact that some kind of nonsense is happening - and there is more and more of it. In the end, somewhere in 2017 - apparently, “at the top” - a decision was made to gradually curtail criminal prosecutions under Article 282 of the Criminal Code (“Inciting hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity”). And there really were fewer of them. The 2018 reform, according to which they became criminal only after a second violation, led to a sharp reduction in the number of cases under this article. This does not mean that all politics have changed because of this. Some other trends continued as usual.

And the previous year brought a new bunch of articles related to statements. And they are formulated in such a way that it is easier to cancel them than to revise them.

— When and why is nationalism persecuted?

— According to the Constitution, the state does not prosecute for views; it prosecutes for statements of a certain content. The state persecutes nationalist - as well as any other, as it seems to it, dangerous - organizations exactly to the extent that they seem dangerous to it. If not, then it doesn’t pursue them.

There are two types of nationalists: Russian nationalists and other peoples of the Russian Federation. To be a non-Russian nationalist in Russia, to proclaim oneself and act as some kind of organized group, is, of course, extremely risky. Even if their demands are as moderate as possible - because the state will suspect you of separatism, and if it doesn’t suspect you now, then it assumes that this activity will sooner or later awaken separatism. And it’s better to stop it in advance.

— If a national public organization declares the issue of preserving national culture, there is no need to fear for its fate in the region?

— It depends on what she says on some politically significant issues. If she talks exclusively about publishing books by some authors or promoting music, or something else like that - yes, nothing will happen to her, most likely. But if these people recall any historical horrors from the time of conquest by the Russian Empire or even the Muscovite kingdom, it is possible that they will begin to be perceived as a dangerous group. Why? Because the authorities will decide that now young people will listen to these stories and will think: we need to take revenge on the Russians for Ivan the Terrible... Well, something like that. These fears are most often very, very exaggerated. But the choice of who to pursue seems to be based on this: whose propaganda seems potentially more dangerous.

The point is not that some people in Tatarstan said that the capture of Kazan by the troops of Ivan the Terrible was bad. The decision to prosecute depends on the extent to which people engage in historical conversations with an eye toward political mobilization. All this is from the point of view of the authorities - as it seems to them. If they see a source of oppositional (what else) political mobilization, then it is better to somehow stop this activity - not necessarily through criminal cases. Perhaps some milder measures will be enough. But there will definitely be restrictions.

— When a national organization not associated with the authorities is called nationalistic in pro-government publications, it sounds negative, because these texts themselves, as a rule, carry a negative message. What does this mean?

— Any disloyal organizations in today's Russian Federation are at risk. How great this risk is depends on many factors; it is necessary to understand each specific case. And you won't always figure it out. The authorities understand that there are certain topics that may have a nationalist aspect: linguistic, sometimes related to land disputes. It is impossible to eradicate it from life completely.

— How true is it that nationalists in Russia are increasingly being persecuted?

— Over the last 10-15 years, attitudes towards nationalists have become tougher. Because the authorities believe that threats to stability must be eradicated in advance. The question is how they choose the targets to persecute: why some people are persecuted and others are not.

If we turn to Russian nationalists over the past year and a half, we remember that there are those who support Ukraine in the conflict, and there are those who side with the Russian government. And there are those who are completely aloof from this. It is clear that those who support Ukraine are better off keeping a low profile on Russian territory. Now this is understandable, but before they got more. And this does not mean that these people are any good - they mostly have rather radical views. Those who supported the government have been doing well lately. They were practically not subjected to any pressure. The only thing was that they were systematically banned from street events, but they were banned from everyone: it was impossible to hold a rally in support of the “SVO” (as the Russian authorities call the war with Ukraine - “Idel. Realities”). But this period also seems to have ended with the arrest of Strelkov. That is, some pressure is now being exerted on this sector.

— What does the presence of radical movements and views in the country indicate? Does it matter?

— Radical views are always present, since there is always some range of them. And there are extreme ones who are seen as radical. The question is what is their share. If the edges of the entire spectrum become stronger, then this is fraught with political instability and conflicts. Any state will worry about this.

Another question is: can we consider that radical movements are now intensifying, there are more of them? This is very difficult to understand: in the absence of legal political activity, it is not clear how many representatives of any views and movements [exist]. Previously, we could literally count the number of nationalists “by head” - when their marches took place. Now how to count? We don’t really understand how many there are now. It is clear that there are active people in this part of the spectrum.

Sources

• "Any disloyal organizations in today's Russia are at risk." Interview with Alexander Verkhovsky // Idel.Realii. 2023. August 30.