Lawmaking

The text of the order of the Prosecutor General's Office, issued back in March 2016 and introducing a new procedure for banning extremist materials, became known in November.

The authority to file such claims in courts now rests solely with the prosecutor's offices of the subjects of the Russian Federation or with military or specialized prosecutors of equal status. They must prepare statements of claim on the basis of their audits of materials in question for signs of extremism, using information they receive from city- and district-level prosecutor's offices.

Moreover, prior to filing these claims, the prosecutor's offices of the subjects of the Federation must receive an approval from the Prosecutor General’s Office department overseeing compliance with legislation relating to federal security, interethnic relations, combating extremism and terrorism (military prosecutors get their claims vetted by the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office).

The order includes a call to avoid actions that could provoke adverse social consequences and, specifically, to take into account the law banning recognition of the scriptures of the world religions and quotes from such scriptures as extremist.

We believe that the Prosecutor General’s order has the potential to reduce the number of inappropriate bans of materials for extremism and to slow down the overall growth of the Federal List of Extremist Materials, which we consider extremely ineffective. However, it should be noted that the Order was signed in March; meanwhile, a number of cases, in which district-level and city-level prosecutors filed claims seeking to ban materials, have been reported in the ensuing period.

Criminal Prosecution

It became known in November that Vyacheslav Kuteynikov – a retired sailor and a popular blogger – received a suspended two year sentence and three years of probation under Article 282 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (incitement to ethnic hatred) in Rostov-on-Don in mid-October. The court found Kuteynikov guilty of publishing information aimed at inciting hatred against the Russians on social networks, specifically on LiveJournal. His sentence has entered into force. We have familiarized ourselves with some of Kuteynikov’s incriminating publications. In these texts, he criticized, in harsh terms, the anti-Ukrainian propaganda campaign waged on the Russian television. The context of the statements indicated that Kuteynikov was applying his derogatory characteristics not to Russian people in general, but to participants of the information war with Ukraine, and his invectives contained no incitement to violence. We found no signs of incitement to hatred in the blogger’s writings, corresponding to the content of Article 282, and we view his conviction as inappropriate.

In early November, the Zelenograd District Court in Moscow sentenced 20-year-old Yevgeny Kort who had never been convicted before to a year of imprisonment in a penal colony under Article 282 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (incitement to ethnic hatred). Kort was charged with publishing on VKontakte a collage that included neo-Nazi Maxim “Tesak” Martsinkevich and a man resembling Alexander Pushkin. The image depicts Tesak pressing Pushkin against the wall; the action is accompanied by an offensive xenophobic comment. The investigation found that the image contained a “set of psychological and linguistic indicators of denigrating non-Russians.” The defendant argued that he had not published the image but was merely keeping it in an album on his social network page. We view the criminal prosecution for publishing a single image as inappropriate, and the punishment as disproportionately harsh. Kort has since appealed the decision.

In early November, the Investigative Committee Department for the Vladimir Region reported that a criminal case under Article 282 Part 1 (incitement of hatred or enmity on the basis of belonging to a social group) has been opened against a 21-year-old resident of Gorokhovets. The young man was charged for his public pseudonymous post of May 2016 on VKontakte, which included a video that contained signs of incitement to hatred against militant anti-fascists. In our opinion, the criminal case was opened inappropriately. Anti-fascists don’t constitute a vulnerable social group in need of protection under this article. Moreover, we believe that the entire vague concept of “social group” should be excluded from the anti-extremist articles of the Criminal Code.

Earlier this month, the FSB Department for the Ulyanovsk Region opened a criminal case under Article 280 Part 1 (public incitement to extremist activity) against the Left Bloc activist Daniel Alferyev. The charges were based on his speech at the Communist rally on November 7, 2014. 23-year-old Alferyev was already a defendant in a criminal case under Article 282 Part 1 (incitement of hatred or enmity on the grounds of belonging to a social group) based on the same speech. In the speech, the activist, for reasons that are not quite clear, parodied the notorious speech by Andrey Kovalenko, the leader of the Moscow branch of the Eurasian Youth Union, and called for “sweeping out” “the fifth column” in the State Duma, participation in the Donbass conflict, and “freeing Russia from the occupation” upon receiving an order from Gennady Zyuganov (not Putin, as it was in Kovalenko’s original version). In our opinion, Alferyev’s words are not punishable under Article 282, and the possibility of interpreting the activist’s speech in the spirit of Article 280 is debatable: Alferyev’s calls can’t be qualified as direct, and appeals to Zyuganov to move the young people to disobedience clearly don’t present significant public danger.

Several guilty verdicts were issued in November for involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir activities. The Privolzhky District Military Court sentenced a Nizhnevartovsk resident to six years in a penal colony under Part 2 of Article 205.5 (participation in the activities of a terrorist organization) and Part 1 of Article 282 (incitement of hatred). The Moscow District Military Court at the visiting session in Saint Petersburg issued a sentence to two Muslims, Dmitry Mikhailov and Isa Ragimov (a native of Dagestan). Mikhailov was convicted under Article 205.5 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (organizing activities of a terrorist organization) and sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony, and Ragimov was sentenced to 12 years under Part 2 of the same article. Six additional people were arrested in Saint Petersburg on the same charges in November. We view prosecution against Hizb ut-Tahrir members under the anti-terrorist articles solely on the basis of their party involvement (meetings, reading literature, etc.) as inappropriate.

Administrative Prosecution

In late October, the Sortavala City Court issued a fine of one thousand rubles to Vitaly Rystov, a local historian and the art director of the Serdobol anthology, under Part 1 Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code (public display of Nazi symbols). Rystov was charged for publishing three images with swastikas on his VKontakte page. He denied his guilt stating that he had saved the posters on his page for professional purposes and had not been aware that strangers could see it. Judging by the content of his account, Rystov adheres to leftist-patriotic views; we believe that the historical posters with swastika on Rystov’s page were not intended to promote Nazi ideology, and, therefore, prosecution against him is inappropriate.

It was announced in November that the Budyonnovsk City Court in the Stavropol Region fined a local Jehovah's Witnesses congregation 500 thousand rubles under Article 20.29 of the Administrative Code (possession of extremist materials for mass distribution). Law enforcement agencies report that illegal pamphlets were found at the Kingdom Hall and in the community leader’s home. According to the believers, the banned extremist materials in the Kingdom Hall was planted, and the literature, confiscated from the head of the community, wasn’t banned. In mid-November, the Chapaevsky City Court of the Samara Region issued a fine of 150 thousand rubles to the local Jehovah's Witnesses organization. As in the Budyonnovsk case, the Chapayevsk believers claim that the prohibited pamphlets were planted in the community house of prayer. We regard bans on Jehovah's Witnesses texts as extremist and prosecuting believers for their distribution as inappropriate, and view such actions of the authorities as religious discrimination.

Muslims also faced charges under Article 20.29 of the Administrative Code in November. A resident of Cherkessk was accused of trying to smuggle the prohibited The Book of Monotheism into the prayer room of the penal Colony No. 3 of the Orenburg Region. The Book of Monotheism by Saudi theologian Saleh Al-Fawzan contains sharp criticism of apostasy from true Islam, as he sees it; however, it does not advocate violence against those viewed by the author as apostates or infidels. We believe that prosecution for distribution of this book, as well as the ban against it, are inappropriate.

The Lopatinsky District Court of the Penza Region fined Samyat Atyakov, the imam-khatib of the mosque of the village of Stary Karlygan, one thousand rubles, following the discovery, in the course of the prosecutorial audit in late September, of five copies of the brochure Islam Today by Abul A'la Maududi in the mosque. This publication was recognized as extremist in 2007 by the Buguruslan City Court. Atyakov stated in court that he had not been aware of the ban against the brochure, and that the publication had been presented to the mosque by one of the community members in 2003. Islam Today contains no aggressive calls, and we believe that the ban against it and persecution for its distribution are inappropriate.

The Yevpatoria City Court fined imam of the Khan-Jami mosque Elmar Abdulganiev, accused of keeping banned literature of the religious association Nurcular in his mosque with intent to distribute. Believers, present during the search, said that people, who introduced themselves as FSB officers, carried it out in total darkness due to power failure, and could have easily planted the book. The imam intends to challenge the court's decision. We regard as inappropriate prohibition of books by Turkish theologian Said Nursi as well as the ban of Nurcular association, which has never even existed in Russia, and persecution of Muslims for participation in its activities.

In November, two activists of People's Freedom Party (PARNAS) from Chuvashia faced prosecution under Article 20.29 of the Administrative Code for publishing images of Deputy Vitaly Milonov captioned with a prohibited slogan. The slogan “Orthodoxy or Death!,” printed on T-shirts for sale online, was banned by the Cheryomushkinsky District Court in 2010 and added to the Federal List of Extremist Materials (entry 865). It is popular among the aggressive segment of members of certain Orthodox Christian organizations, such as, for example, the Union of Orthodox Banner Bearers. Historically, however, it originates from one of the monasteries of Mount Athos, and is understood not as a wish for the death of the non-Orthodox, but as an opposition of Orthodoxy vs. spiritual death, i.e. “We can be either Orthodox or spiritually dead.” The vast majority of people using this slogan interpret it this way. Therefore, we view the ban as inappropriate. Dmitry Semyonov from Cheboksary was fined by the Tsivilsky District Court twice, each time in the amount of one thousand rubles, for sharing two images depicting Deputy Vitaly Milonov on VKontakte in 2014 – one with Milonov wearing an “Orthodoxy or Death” T-shirt and the other one featuring Milonov dressed in a suit, but captioned with the same slogan. On the other hand, Dmitry Pankov, who was also facing responsibility for sharing images of Milonov captioned by the same ill-fated slogan, has managed to avoid fines – the Novocheboksarsk City Court ruled to dismiss the case, taking into account the violations, made by police officers when compiling the protocol, as well as the fact that the Federal List of Extremist Materials contained the slogan ending with an exclamation point, while the exclamation mark was absent in the “Orthodoxy or death” phrase, as published by Pankov. However, the law enforcement authorities have promised to appeal the court's decision.

Blocking Materials as Extremist and Other State Actions

It was reported in November that the community “Rashka – Kvadratny Vatnik” on VKontakte has been blocked. The group was blocked by a decision of the Kuibyshevsky District Court of Omsk, issued on September 21, 2016. The judgment states that the online community included “a number of photographic images of the Russian President in a Nazi uniform with associated attributes of the Nazi German soldiers, photographic images of the Nazi swastika in different formats and interpretations,” “quotes, posts, articles and user comments as well as images insulting representatives of the Russian nation and the current government,” “publications that are obviously, without possibility of other interpretations or doubts, calling for extremist activities, justify or excuse the need for such activities, or contain ideas aimed at inciting national and religious hatred and enmity.”

“Rashka – Kvadratny Vatnik” publishes satirical comics about the eponymous character, invented in 2011 by online cartoonist Anton Chadsky. Vatnik is a composite character, endowed with morality and all sorts of conservative attitudes and prejudices that are, in Chadsky’s opinion, typical for an average Russian citizen. Since the VKontakte group “Rashka – Kvadratny Vatnik” has been blocked, we got acquainted with the content of other online communities dedicated to the same character. Despite the crude humor, characteristic of these publications, they contain no dangerous aggressive appeals pertaining to the Russians or the Orthodox believers, which could be interpreted as signs of incitement to hatred. If such statements had been found in specific comments in the VKontakte group, then, in our opinion, law enforcement agencies should have expressed their concerns to the group’s moderator, rather than block the entire page. As for the images of Nazi symbols, we would like to reiterate that we are opposed to banning them in cases unrelated to promotion of Nazi ideology. In particular, prosecution for Nazi symbols, used as a visual means of criticism directed at one’s opponents, seems unjustified.

In early November, we were informed about the start of proceedings in the Vyborg City Court pertaining to the claim against the Vyborg customs filed by the Gideons International – an evangelical Christian association whose mission is to distribute copies of the Bible worldwide. The Association attempted to import a print run of the New Testament and the Psalms into Russia in July 2016, but the books were detained, because the customs officers had them confused with Jehovah's Witnesses materials (you may also remember that, in early 2016, the Vyborg customs seized the print run of the Holy Scriptures in the New World Translation; a claim to recognize this publication as extremist has been filed in court) and demanded a psycho-linguistic examination of the books of the Bible in order to to determine whether they should be considered extremist literature. The Gideons presented to the head of the customs an expert opinion from the Department of Religious Studies of the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia that confirmed that the New Testament and the Psalms are parts of the Bible. Russia has a law, in force since November 2015, which bans recognizing the scriptures of the four world religions (including the Bible) as extremist. The customs refused to take the expert opinion into account. As a result, the mission’s vehicle with 20 thousand books remained in the customs for a long time, so that the books deteriorated and the entire print run had to be returned to Finland, where it had been printed. The Gideons mission is trying to challenge the actions of the customs office.