The following is our review of the primary and most representative
events in the misuse of Russia’s anti-extremist legislation in January 2018.
Lawmaking
On January 11, 2018, the deputies of the LDPR faction submitted to the State Duma another bill on the abolition of Article 282 of the Criminal Code (incitement to hatred or enmity). The arguments of its authors basically repeat those used by the LDPR in their previous similar initiatives. The bill received negative feedback from the government and the Supreme Court of Russia. It is hard to interpret it as anything other than an electoral season action by the LDPR.
On January 12, the State
Duma adopted in the first reading a bill on amending two federal laws: the Law on
Media and the Law on Information, Information Technology and Information
Protection. The amendment stipulates that individuals can also be regarded as mass
media outlets that perform the functions of a “foreign agent. According to the
proposed bill, the “foreign agent” media outlets are supposed to establish the
corresponding Russian organizations to represent them and use the universal
mandatory disclaimer to accompany their materials; in the absence of such a disclaimer
for online materials, the website guilty of omission is subject to extra-judicial
blocking. The proposal also includes a separate mechanism for blocking “foreign
agent” media outlets that refuse to address their violations of the established
process.
Тhe Practice of the European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) communicated a number of complaints regarding the decisions issued by Russian courts. In particular, the following complaints were communicated in the cases involving anti-extremist legislation:
• by Rafis Kashapov, the Chairman of the Tatar Public Center sentenced to a prison term for criticizing Russia's policy towards Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea, regarding the use of Article 280.1 of the Criminal Code (public calls for actions aimed at violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation);
• by roofer Vladimir Podrezov, convicted in 2015 under Article 213 Part 2 and Article 214 Part 2 of the Criminal Code (hooliganism and vandalism committed by a group of people motivated by political hatred) in the case related to the star on the steeple of a high-rise building in Moscow that was covered with paint in the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
• by Mikhail Feldman and Oleg Savvin, who, along with Dmitry Fonarev, were convicted in 2015 on the charges of hooliganism committed by a group of persons by previous concert with the motives of political hatred and enmity and of hatred toward the social group “veterans of the Great Patriotic War” (Article 213 Part 2 of the Criminal Code) for hoisting a German flag on the garage of the Kaliningrad Regional FSB Office
• by activist Darya Polyudova from Krasnodar, sentenced to two years in jail in December 2015 under Parts 1 and 2 of Article 280 (public incitement to extremist activities) and Article 280.1 Part 2 (public calls for separatism) of the Criminal Code for her publications on VKontakte, specifically, for sharing a post about the demands of ethnic Ukrainians residing in Kuban, for a photo of herself holding a banner with the word “revolution” on it, and for a text calling for the overthrow of the regime.
Now, the Russian
authorities have to answer questions of the Strasbourg Court in connection with
these cases; in particular, they need to clarify whether the appellants’ rights
to liberty and personal inviolability were violated, and whether the
interference with their right to freedom of expression was justified, based on
the law, and necessary in a democratic society.
Prosecutions for Incitement to Ethnic Hatred and Oppositional Statements
In mid-January a court in Voskresensk, the Moscow Region, sentenced Valentin Sokolov to one and a half years' imprisonment under Article 282 part 1 of the Criminal Code (incitement to ethnic hatred) for his publications on social networks. In the course of the proceedings, it was established that Sokolov had posted on Odnoklassniki an image containing the text that incited hatred towards Russians, he also posted on Facebook a number of videos accompanied by xenophobic remarks calling, in particular, for violence against black people. We consider this sentence partially inappropriate. The materials of the case indicate that the image, accompanied by the pro-Ukrainian text that included a call for killing the Russians, found on Sokolov’s Odnoklassniki page, was saved in the “Miscellaneous” folder without any explanation. The investigation and the court failed to take into account the fact that all published images on this social network automatically appeared in the “Miscellaneous” folder, while the actual post, in addition to the offending image, also contained a critical commentary by Sokolov.
In mid-January, the Investigative
Committee re-qualified the charges in
the case of nationalist Dina Garina of St. Petersburg, who was charged under Article
282 part 1 (incitement to hatred on the basis of ethnic affiliation and on the basis
of belonging to the social group “Center E employees”) for her speech at a
rally. After the court returned the case to the prosecutor, and the prosecutor
demanded that the investigation eliminate the violations, Garina's actions were
re-qualified under Article 319 of the Criminal Code (insulting a government
representative), the statute of limitations for which had already expired. In
our opinion, Garina's speech indeed contained insults and racist statements,
characterizing the employees of the Centers E (units of the Department for
Combating Extremism) as ethnic aliens (of non-Russian or mixed origin), and
accusing them of “genetic hatred” towards the Russians. Nevertheless, we
doubted the validity of the criminal prosecution of Garina under Article 282 of
the Criminal Code – the law enforcement personnel should not be considered a
vulnerable social group in need of special protection from manifestations of
hatred. We regard the target for incitement to ethnic hatred in Garina's
remarks as nebulous, and her statements contained no calls for violence.
Vyacheslav Gorbaty, an activist from the Moscow Region, was put
under house arrest in late January; he was accused of involvement in an
extremist organization (Article 282.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code) and
financing it (Article 282.3 Part 1 of the Criminal Code). According to the investigators,
the 58-year-old resident of Chernogolovka being the leader of the regional
branch of the Initiative Group of
the Referendum “For Responsible Power” (Za
otvetstvennuyu vlast, IGPR “ZOV”), which continued the
activity of the banned Army of People’s Will (Armiya Voli Naroda, AVN) – had collected 143,000
rubles for the organization's activities. The Army
of People’s Will, an organization of
the Stalinist-nationalist kind
repeatedly implicated in xenophobic propaganda, was recognized as
extremist in 2010. We view its ban as inappropriate, since this decision was
based solely on the ban of the leaflet: You
have elected – You are to judge! (Ty izbral – tebe sudit), which we regard as unfounded. Accordingly, we believe
that the 2017 verdict against the leaders of the IGPR “ZOV” and the persecution
of its members, are also inappropriate.
Special attention should be paid to the authorities’ attempts to invoke anti-extremist legislation in disputes over the use of national languages of the subjects of the Federation. In mid-January, the Prosecutor's Office of Bashkortostan issued a warning regarding the impermissibility of extremist activity to the Congress of the Bashkir People (Kongress bashkirskogo naroda, KBN) for the slogans heard at the rally in defense of the Bashkir language. KBN views the actions of the Prosecutor's Office as pressure related to the upcoming elections.
At the end of the month, the All-Tatar Public Center (Vsetatarsky obshchestvenny tsentr, VTOTs) failed in its attempt to challenge in a district court in Kazan the warning about the impermissibility of extremist activities issued in October by the Prosecutor's Office of Tatarstan. The prosecutorial claims against the organization, in our opinion, had nothing to do with combating extremism, since they dealt exclusively with the VTOTs position on the status of the Tatar language and its use in the official paperwork.
Batyrkhan Agzamov, an activist of the Tatar youth organization Azatlyk, who participated in rallies in Kazan in support of mandatory Tatar-language classes at schools in the Republic, reported that he was facing administrative prosecution under Article 20.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (public demonstration of Nazi symbols) for the publication of a collage, which depicted a member of the Donbass militia receiving a patch decorated with the kolovrat (Slavic solar symbol). The case materials include an expert opinion that confirms the similarity of kolovrat and swastika and mentions the image, listed on the Federal List of Extremist Materials, which included the kolovrat as its integral part. Meanwhile, Agzamov was not engaged in propaganda of Nazism; on the contrary, the image in question denounced the nationalistic views of the Donbass militia. In addition, the fact that a certain image is prohibited does not mean that all its elements are individually prohibited.
Two other cases of apparently inappropriate
application of Article 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offences, reported in
January, involved attention paid by law enforcement agencies to volunteers of Alexei
Navalny’s campaign. In Petrozavodsk, the Commission on Juvenile Affairs refused
on procedural grounds to consider such a case initiated against 17-year-old
Daniil Smetansky, who, in 2013, posted on VKontakte an image featuring Putin
and Hitler wearing the swastika on his sleeve. The court in Arkhangelsk fined
59-year-old Mikhail Listov one thousand rubles under the same article. Listov
was charged for two VKontakte posts made in 2016: a 1945 photograph, in which
Soviet soldiers throw Nazi banners on the Red Square during the Victory Day
parade, and a still frame from the scandalous dance show, aired on Russia-1 TV
channel, where one of the participants wore a Nazi uniform. In both cases, the
authors did not engage in propaganda of the Nazi ideology.
The Federal List of Extremist Materials
has added an item, which, in our opinion, was banned inappropriately. The text
of the song “Kill the Cosmonauts” of the group Ensemble of Christ the Savior
and Crude Mother Earth was added to the list as No. 4342. It was recognized as
extremist on October 16, 2017 by the Blagoveshchensk City Court of the Amur
Region. The court did not take into account the fact that this song, like most
others in the Ensemble’s repertoire, was obviously tongue-in-cheek – the authors
ridiculed the obscurantism of the Orthodox radicals and their perception of
science through the prism of primitive religiosity. In our opinion, this work presents
no danger to society; it is hard to imagine that the calls to kill cosmonauts
for “climbing to heaven” or the
proposal to ban scientific progress, contained in the text, could be taken
seriously even by the most radical audience.
Prosecutions against Religious Organizations and Believers
The persecution of supporters of the Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir, recognized as terrorist in Russia, has continued. In late December – January, the Privolzhsky District Military Court sentenced four out of five defendants in the case of the Hizb ut-Tahrir “Kazan cell.” Marat Dindarov and Ibragim Shavkatov were sentenced to seven and six years respectively in a minimal security penal colony for participation in the activities of a terrorist organization (article 205.5 Part 2 of the Criminal Code). Kazan resident Ramil Gataullin was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment under the same article, while Amir Khakimullin was convicted of organizing the activities of a terrorist organization (Article 205.5 Part 1, and, according to some sources, also for participation in it) and sentenced to 17 years in a maximum-security penal colony and restriction of freedom for a year. We view the charges of terrorism against Hizb ut-Tahrir's followers merely on the basis of their party activities (holding meetings, reading literature, etc.) as inappropriate.
Prosecutions for Anti-Religious Statements
In mid-January, the magistrate court
in Sochi dismissed the criminal case against Viktor Nochevnov, previously
convicted under Article 148 part 1 of the Criminal Code (insulting the feelings
of believers) due to the statute of limitations. Nochevnov was sentenced to a fine of 50
thousand rubles in August 2017, but, in October, the district court annulled
the verdict and sent the case for a new trial. The Sochi resident faced charges
for sharing a series of cartoon images of Jesus Christ on a social network. We
opposed the criminal prosecution against Nochevnov. In our opinion, the formula
“insulting the feelings of believers”, which has no legal meaning, should be
removed from the Criminal Code altogether.
We learned in late January that, back in September 2017, musician Daniil Sukachyov of Novgorod was fined 30 thousand rubles under Article 5.26 part 2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (desecration of religious objects), and the district court confirmed the relevant decision of the magistrate in November. Sukachyov published on VKontakte a video set to the song of the Polish black metal band Batushka [Father], which used video of Orthodox worship, edited with addition of various superimposed effects (flames, smoke, etc.). We view the prosecution of the Novgorod resident as inappropriate – he did not create a video, but only posted it on the social network page; in addition, no actual religious objects were desecrated even in the process of creating the video.