The following is our review of the primary and most representative events in the misuse of Russia's anti-extremist legislation in March 2023.

Lawmaking

On March 18, Vladimir Putin signed laws amending the Criminal Code (CC) and the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO). Amendments to the Criminal Code were added to the draft law that was initially intended to clarify the issue of liability under Article 215.4 CC (illegal entry into a protected facility) and had previously been adopted in the first reading.

Public dissemination of knowingly false information (Article 207.3 CC) and repeated discreditation (Article 280.3 CC) are now criminalized not only when pertaining to activities of the armed forces and Russian state bodies abroad but also to activities of volunteer formations, organizations and individuals, who support the armed forces of Russia in carrying out their assigned tasks. Responsibility under Article 207.3 Part 1 CC has become more severe with the maximum punishment under it increasing from three to five years of imprisonment; maximum punishment under Article 280.3 CC Part 1 has also increased from three to five years of imprisonment. The change means that the acts punishable under Part 1 of both articles have ceased to be a crime of minor gravity, so an arrest can now be used as a preventive measure and real prison terms can be imposed in the absence of aggravating circumstances. The terms under Article 280.3 Part 2 CC (discreditation of the army resulting in death by negligence and (or) causing harm to the health of citizens, property, mass violations of public order and (or) public security) increased from five to seven years of imprisonment. The terms under Parts 2 and 3 of Article 207.3 CC remained the same, from five to ten and from ten to fifteen years of imprisonment respectively.

Amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses were added to the bill that initially addressed the responsibility of the media for distributing instructions on the ways to manufacture ammunition. Liability under Article 20.3.3 CAO, used to punish public discreditation committed for the first time in the 12-month period, will also now apply to statements about volunteer formations, individuals and organizations that contribute to the fulfillment of the Russian army’s objectives. The punishment under this article remains the same.

In our opinion, the legal norm to ban discreditation of the actions of the Russian armed forces or government agencies abroad and the article to punish “fakes” about the army constitute an unreasonable restriction on the right to freedom of expression intended to suppress criticism of the official political course. Therefore, we view the expansion of this ban and the increased severity of punishment for its violation as yet another step in the same direction.

We also note that, on March 22, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a decree introducing new forensic examination restrictions. Experts from non-state institutions are no longer allowed to conduct forensic linguistic, psychological and linguistic examinations in criminal cases related to terrorism and extremism. We find the adopted restrictions potentially problematic. These innovations might have a negative impact on the adversarial system of justice since the parties lose an opportunity to involve independent experts.

Sanctions for Statements against the Authorities

Justifying Terrorism

On March 16, the 1st Eastern District Military Court sentenced artist Maxim Smolnikov, known as Xadad, to a fine of 300 thousand rubles under Article 205.2 Part 2 CC (public justification of terrorism on the Internet) with a two-year ban on posting information online. The case against Smolnikov was based on his VKontakte activity – he posted two texts discussing an explosion staged by anarcho-communist Mikhail Zhlobitsky in the FSB office building in Arkhangelsk on October 31, 2018 (Zhlobitsky died and three FSB officers were injured as a result of the explosion). A post by Smolnikov shared the text initially posted in the People's Self-Defense community; its authors focused their readers' attention on the fact that Zhlobitsky named the use of torture by law enforcement officers as the reason for his action. In his other post, Smolnikov wrote that Zhlobitsky took such a radical step due to the repressive policy of the state and, in particular, because of the incidents of torture practiced by the Federal Penal Enforcement Service (FSIN) and the FSB. Smolnikov noted that this explosion is more like an act of self-immolation, rather than a “guerilla or terrorist attack,” called the incident “too high a cost [of the political struggle]” and expressed condolences to the relatives and friends of the deceased anarchist. We regard the prosecution against the artist as inappropriate, since we cannot see in his statements any signs of public justification of terrorism or propaganda of terrorism that would correspond to the definition provided in the notes to Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code. His text expressed regret over the young man’s death but contained no statements indicating that terrorism was appropriate or permissible.

Activities Jeopardizing State Security

On March 9, Artyom Kamardin, Yevgeny Shtovba and Nikolai Daineko, participants in the Mayakovsky poetry readings, were charged under Article 280.4 Part 3 CC (public calls to carry out activities undermining state security, committed by an organized group). In addition, the charges against them under Article 282 CC were modified – previously, the activists had been charged under paragraph “a” of Article 282 Part 2 CC (actions aimed at the incitement of hatred or enmity, committed with the threat of violence), while now they are prosecuted under paragraph “c” (actions aimed at the incitement of hatred or enmity, committed by an organized group). Recall that the charges against all three defendants were filed after the “anti-mobilization” readings at Mayakovsky Square in Moscow held on September 25. During the readings, Kamardin referred to the Donbas militia as terrorists and recited two poems, one of them with other attendees joining in the recital. Law enforcement agencies found the poems to contain signs of inciting hatred or enmity against volunteer armed groups of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and the calls for violence against them and their families. In our opinion, Kamardin's statements were provocative and could be perceived as insulting by the Donbas militias themselves, their families and their supporters, but we found them to contain no incitement to violence.

The new charge under Article 280.4 was related to the fact that law enforcement agencies found information about the need to “resist” partial mobilization in a post announcing the event on the Mayakovsky Readings Telegram channel. According to the decision that declared Kamardin a defendant in the case, he and his accomplices urged their readers to “‘observe the rules’, namely, ‘don’t take’ summonses from enlistment office representatives, ‘don’t sign’ any documents to confirm the receipt of the summons, ‘don’t go’ to military enlistment offices, as well as ‘remember’ all the above.” It should be noted that the recommendation by Kamardin, Shtovba and Daineko did not incite crimes, since failure to appear at the military enlistment office upon receiving the mobilization summons constitutes an administrative offense. Accordingly, we regard the prosecution against them under a criminal article as inappropriate.

Calls for Separatism

On March 9, the Nalchik City Court of Kabardino-Balkaria satisfied the claim of the regional department of the Ministry of Justice of Russia and decided to recognize the public organization “Council of Elders of the Balkar People of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic” as no longer active. The decision was based on several formal violations of the law. However, the Ministry of Justice also indicated in the lawsuit that it had studied a document published in February 2022 in the Balkar People Bulletin, a periodical published by the Council of Elders. The document was signed, among others, by the Council’s head Ismail Sabanchiev. According to the Ministry of Justice, the appeal, addressed to the President of Russia and other senior officials of the country, contained “the demand for the secession of Balkaria from the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria to form a new subject of the Russian Federation.” The court agreed with the Ministry pointing out that the appeal showed a sign of extremist activity – “violent change of the foundations of the constitutional order” – specified in the relevant federal law. Information on this decision was sent to the Kabardino-Balkaria Prosecutor's Office. We had no opportunity to read the text of the appeal. However, we would like to reiterate our opinion that restricting the discussion on the status of certain territories is appropriate only in case of incitement, specifically, to violence with intent to violate the territorial integrity of Russia. If the appeal contained no incitement to violence but only a call to divide the subject of the federation in the manner prescribed by law, then we view the claims against the Council of Elders for publishing the appeal or against its signatories as unfounded. It should be noted that back in 2010, the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria liquidated the Council of Elders of the Balkar people for carrying out extremist activities, but the Supreme Court of Russia overturned this inappropriate (in our opinion) decision.

Inciting Hatred Against the Authorities and Their Supporters

It was reported in early March, that Igor (Ingvar) Gorlanov, an activist from Novokuznetsk raised in an orphanage, was charged under Article 282 Part 1 CC for the repeated incitement of hatred (on the basis of belonging to a social group). Through a series of solitary pickets, Gorlanov made the local authorities provide him with housing, for which he was eligible, and protested the use of punitive psychiatry in orphanages. The prosecution was based on his Telegram posts, where, according to the investigation, he criticized judges and called the police “rats.” Earlier, the activist had been punished twice under the administrative Article 20.3.1 CAO (inciting hatred) for his posts on the same social network with a negative characterization of the police.

We consider the prosecution against Gorlanov inappropriate. In our opinion, representatives of various branches of government do not form vulnerable social groups in need of special protection from manifestations of hatred. In general, we believe that the vague concept of “social group” should be excluded from the legal norms on incitement of hatred. As for the police, the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly noted that police officers must be extremely tolerant of criticism unless it involves a real threat of violence. It is also worth adding that the Criminal Code includes a separate legal norm, Article 319, that provides punishment for insulting a representative of the authorities in the performance of their official duties – and, by the way, Gorlanov faces charges under this article as well due to his conflict with a shopping center policeman.

On March 15, the Kirovsky District Court of Kemerovo returned the case under Article 282 Part 1 CC (inciting social hatred) against blogger Mikhail Alfyorov to the prosecutor due to violations in preparing the indictment. Alfyorov had been repeatedly prosecuted under administrative and criminal articles. The current case was based on a video about the detention of politician Alexei Navalny posted on Alferov’s YouTube channel “Vrag Svinosobak” [the Enemy of Pigdogs]. According to investigators, the video contained “a negative assessment of a group of persons united on the basis of their position of authority: law enforcement agencies and judicial authorities.” Alfyorov expressed his support for Navalny, discussed the manner, in which the opposition leader was detained, and criticized the actions of law enforcement agencies calling them criminals more dangerous than street robbers; he also characterized the current regime in the country as criminal.

In March, we received information that three people had faced sanctions under the Article. 20.3.1 CAO on inciting hatred for their statements about government officials that were harshly critical but did not call for violence.

• On February 6, the Isilkul City Court of the Omsk Region imposed a fine of ten thousand rubles on local resident Ruslan Yeliseev. The law enforcement found obscene statements “humiliating the dignity of Border Directorate employees of the FSB of Russia in the Omsk Region” in his posts in the local Odnoklassniki group.
• On March 3, the Nagatinsky District Court of Moscow fined local resident Vadim Gatilov twice; the amounts are unknown. The case was based on Gatilov’s posts on Odnoklassniki, one of which compared Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler and the other called the president a “fascist.”
• On March 16, the Oktyabrsky District Court of Rostov-on-Don fined local resident Bogdan Zayats 10 thousand rubles for comments on VKontakte that contained “linguistic signs of humiliation (insult)” of government officials.

In addition, on March 16, the Dzerzhinsky District Court of Perm fined Konstantin Okunev, an ex-deputy of the Perm Regional Legislative Assembly, 20 thousand rubles for three of his VKontakte posts. The experts, who conducted an examination in the case, concluded that the posts contained a negative assessment of representatives of the social group that supported the political course of the President of Russia. We have reviewed the content of two out of three posts by Okunev and did not find any aggressive calls to action; apparently, there were none in the third publication either. Okunev only criticized the actions of the authorities and the views of political opponents and condemned the low level of education and civic passivity of fellow citizens. It should also be noted that supporters of Vladimir Putin's course do not form a vulnerable social group requiring special protection from manifestations of hatred.”

Distribution of Extremist Materials

On March 17, the Cheremushkinsky District Court of Moscow placed Yuri Samoylov under arrest for 14 days under Article 20.29 CAO (mass dissemination of extremist materials). A passenger sitting next to Samoylov in the subway noticed that the wallpaper on his smartphone featured a patch of the Ukrainian Azov regiment. Azov has been recognized in Russia as a terrorist organization, and the patch has been included on the Federal List of Extremist Materials. The passenger took a photo of Samoylov and Samoylov's phone, then left the train and informed the police. The court decided that Samoylov could have shown the image not only to his fellow passenger but also to an unlimited number of people. In our opinion, since the court established the fact that Samoylov demonstrated the Azov patch to only one passenger, he should not have been punished for mass dissemination. After serving his sentence, he was additionally charged under Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Offenses Code, apparently due to other information discovered on his phone by the law enforcement; this case will be considered by the court in April.”

In March, we learned about three cases filed under Article 20.29 CAO for posting the banned video “Let's Remind Crooks and Thieves about their Manifesto-2002” on social networks. Nikolai Lituev, Yelena Selezneva and Natalia Stadnichenko were each fined a thousand rubles in Barnaul. “Let's Remind Crooks and Thieves about their Manifesto-2002,” circulated by Alexei Navalny's supporters, gained wide popularity online and was declared extremist in 2013 along with several materials by Russian nationalists. The video merely lists a number of United Russia's unfulfilled campaign promises from the party's draft manifesto of 2002 and calls for voting for any party other than United Russia. We view the ban against this video as unfounded and sanctions for its distribution as inappropriate.

Discrediting the Actions of the Russian Armed Forces or Government Agencies

We view both, sanctions under Article 20.3.3 CAO on discrediting the use of the Russian armed forces and the activities of government agencies abroad and prosecution under Article 280.3 CC on the repeated discrediting of such use or activities, as inappropriate unless the relevant statements are accompanied by direct incitement to violence.

According to the Mediazona portal, as of the second half of March, the total number of cases received by Russian courts under Article 20.3.3 CAO since its introduction has reached 6,300. People face sanctions for statements made offline and online, displaying posters, slogans on their clothes, distributing printed campaign materials, placing graffiti on various buildings, and so on. People fined in March include, for example, Viktor Pivovarov, an 86-year-old theologian and an archbishop of the Slavic and South Russian Orthodox Church of Russia (separated from the Russian Orthodox Church in 2002). The Slavyansk City Court of Krasnodar Krai imposed on him a fine of 40 thousand rubles for anti-war statements he had made during a sermon.

Seven sentences were issued in March under Article 280.3 Part 1 CC (repeated discrediting of the use of Russian armed forces) against seven people.

• On March 15, the Yalta City Court issued a suspended sentence of 14 months with a three-year probationary period to local resident, Igor Rylov. According to investigators, in January, Rylov shouted slogans discrediting the Russian armed forces at a public transport stop, while intoxicated. In 2022, Rylov was twice punished under Article 20.3.3 Part 1 CAO. First, the Yalta City Court fined him for unspecified statements he made in public in April, and then for shouting “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes!” on the morning of May 9.
• On March 15, the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Court fined Alexander Kamenyuk, a public activist and ex-head of the Just Russia regional branch, 450 thousand rubles with a two-year ban on publishing materials on the Internet. Kamenyuk’s case was based on two social network posts on the subject of the military operation in Ukraine. Earlier, the activist faced administrative responsibility twice under Article 20.3.3 Part 1 CAO.
• On March 20, the Yakutsk City Court sentenced the chairman of the republican branch of the Yabloko party, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, to a fine of 280 thousand rubles, but reduced it to 200 thousand taking into account the period the defendant had spent under the ban on certain actions during the investigation. The politician’s case was based on his video message posted on Telegram, in which he spoke out against the mobilization and urged his audience not to participate in the hostilities. Earlier, Nogovitsyn had been fined under Article 20.3.3 Part 1 CAO for sharing a video report from Nikolaev by journalist Yelena Kostyuchenko accompanied by his own text as a commentary.
• On March 22, the Central District Court of Simferopol sentenced Andrei Belozerov, a former teacher at the Belogorsk technical school, to a fine of 100 thousand rubles with a two-year ban on the administration of Internet resources. The criminal prosecution was based on Belozerov’s VKontakte post, in which he claimed that the Russian armed forces had bombed women and children in the Donbas, “turning the guns from the front towards Donetsk,” and were now bombing Ukrainian cities and killing local civilians. Previously, Belozerov had been punished under Article 20.3.3 CAO for discrediting the Russian army and twice placed under arrest under Article 20.3 CAO for displaying prohibited symbols. We view the charges in all these cases as inappropriate.
• On March 23, the Primorsky District Court of Novorossiysk sentenced Askhabali Alibekov, the owner of the YouTube channel “Dikiy Desantnik” [A Wild Paratrooper], to a year and two months in a maximum-security penal colony. The criminal case was based on two videos that sharply criticized Vladimir Putin as the supreme commander-in-chief. Earlier, Alibekov had been fined twice under Article 20.3.3 Part 1 CAO (discrediting the use of the armed forces) for posting two videos – “Putin Should Step Down” and “Enough Blood... Save Russia” (by the time the criminal case was initiated, the latter decision had not entered into force).
• On March 28, the Yefremov Interdistrict court of the Tula Region sentenced Alexei Moskalyov to two years in prison. The day before the verdict was announced, Moskalyov escaped from under house arrest and was detained in Minsk two days later. Earlier, in April 2022, after an incident at his daughter’s school, Moskalyov was fined under Article 20.3.3 Part 1 CAO for his posts on Odnoklassniki about the rape of Ukrainian girls by the Russian military. The Criminal prosecution was based on his posts on the same social network, which discussed events in Bucha and the POW’s deaths in Ilovaisk, among other topics. After a search and an interrogation by the FSB, Moskalyov and his daughter, whom he was raising alone, left the city, so he was placed on the wanted list. On March 1, 2023, Moskalyov was detained and, on the next day, placed under house arrest on the grounds that he had failed to report on time when summoned by the investigator. At the same time, his 13-year-old daughter was placed in a social rehabilitation center for minors; she stayed there until her mother, who had not participated in her upbringing for several years, came to pick her up.
• On March 31, the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Court sentenced Vladimir Yefimov – a local journalist, public figure and the head of the Yabloko party regional branch – to a fine of 200 thousand rubles and a two-year ban on publishing materials on the Internet. Previously, he had faced responsibility several times under Article 20.3.3 CAO. The case was based on Yefimov’s social network posts.

Several newly opened criminal cases under Article 280.3 CC were reported in March, with 12 people as defendants:

• Andrei Bogdanov, a 60-year-old resident of Zelenodolsk (Republic of Tatarstan), who had been previously prosecuted for an unsuccessful attempt to set fire to a local military enlistment office; the case is based on his solitary pickets with anti-war posters;
• Stanislav Rumyantsev from Ivanovo for his February picket next to the local office of the United Russia party holding a poster with anti-war and anti-government statements;
• Alexander Roshchin from Lobnya of the Moscow Region for three VKontakte posts on the subject of the military operation in Ukraine;
• Amyr Aitashev, a blogger and coordinator of the Anti-Corruption Committee of the Republic of Altai, who has left Russia, for his messages in the Telegram chat “Gorny Altai. Obsuzhdeniye” [Gorny Altai. Discussion] – in particular, for his correspondence with a participant of the special military operation in Ukraine, who had lost his leg;
• Nazir Ts. from Nazran (Republic of Ingushetia) for his comments in the “Chitateli Chernovika” [Chernovik newspaper readers] Telegram chat;
• Oleg Orlov from Moscow, a co-chairman of the board of the Memorial Human Rights Center, for his Facebook post with the Russian version of his own article “They Wanted Fascism. They Got It,” published in French by Mediapart; the charge was filed after a search and interrogation in the Memorial case (see below);
• Andrei Melnikov, a blogger from Anapa, who has left Russia; the reason for his prosecution is unknown;
• Semyon Kochkin, an opposition activist from Cheboksary, for his post on the “Serditaya Chuvashia” [Angry Chuvashia] Telegram channel about the sanctions imposed by the European Union against a native of the republic, Robert Baranov, now serving as the head of the Main Computing Center of the Russian Ministry of Defense;
• Olga Lizunkova, an educator from the Nizhny Novgorod Region, who has left Russia, for her video message on the same Angry Chuvashia channel. Having thanked the subscribers for their help in paying her administrative fine for discrediting the army, imposed for her statements made in front of a university class, Lizunkova once again spoke out against the “special operation” and the president. However, this criminal case was almost immediately dismissed – it turned out that the appeal against the administrative fine had been filed before the video was posted, so the fine did not enter into force;
• Igor Kazankov, a repeatedly convicted resident of Kireevsk in the Tula Region for disorderly conduct in a store while under the influence of alcohol. He took off his shirt, demonstrating tattoos with Nazi symbols, and then continued to swear in the parking lot, shouting, in particular: “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Ukraine!” A similar incident involving Kazankov had previously taken place in the Moscow metro, so a case under Article 282.4 Part 1 CC was also opened against him for the repeated public demonstration of Nazi symbols; we do not consider it inappropriate;
• Vasily Bolshakov from Kasimov of the Ryazan Region for his VKontakte post with a joke about the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson. We found out in early April that another criminal case was opened against him under the same article for his anti-war comments on the same social network;
• a resident of Orsk, who posted a comment discrediting the Russian armed forces using an unspecified online messenger.

“Fakes about the Army” Motivated by Hatred

We oppose the use of the political hate motive in libel cases including the cases on spreading false information about the Russian army. The manifestation of political or ideological hatred, in and of itself, is not criminalized, and we believe that this motive is appropriate as an aggravating circumstance only in articles on crimes that pose a serious public danger, namely, in articles on the use of violence. We believe that the motive of political hatred in cases of military “fakes” is used inappropriately. People, who publish information on military operations in Ukraine that differs from the official version, obviously, in most cases, ideologically and politically disagree with the official course, that is, such statements are a form of peaceful political criticism, which should not be restricted. Therefore, we consider the cases of prosecution under paragraph “e” of Article 207.3 Part 2 (dissemination of deliberately false information about the use of the Russian army motivated by political hatred) inappropriate unless based on statements containing incitement to violence.

We know of three verdicts against four people issued in March for spreading “fake news” about the army motivated by hatred.

• On March 17, the Konakovo City Court of the Tver Region issued a verdict against a married couple, Alexander Martynov and Lyudmila Razumova. Both were charged under paragraph “e” of Article 207.3 Part 2 CC and Article 214 Part 2 CC (vandalism committed by a group of persons, motivated by political hatred). The court sentenced Martynov to six and a half years in a minimum-security penal colony with a ban on holding civil service positions for four years and Razumova to seven years in a minimum-security penal colony with a four-year ban on holding civil service positions. Initially, Martynov and Razumova faced charges only under Article 207.3 CC in connection with their posts on Odnoklassniki that accused the Russian military, including General Sergei Surovikin personally, of shelling civilian targets and, of war crimes in general. Both were taken into custody in March 2022 on this charge. The prosecution of Martynov and Razumova under Article 214 CC was based on the graffiti found in the villages of Mokshino, Varaksino, and Teshilovo and the settlements of Mirny and Novozavidovsky. The graffiti protested the war and was also directed against the President of Russia. The images were applied using a stencil “forming a fusion of two people,” Putin and Hitler. We consider this charge inappropriate as well, since we oppose the use of the political hate motive in cases related to vandalism (see below).
• On March 29, the Moskovsky District Court of St. Petersburg sentenced Oleg Belousov, an amateur military graves finder, to five and a half years in a penal colony with a four-year ban on publishing on the Internet, having found him guilty under paragraph “e” of Article 207.3 Part 2 CC and Article 280 Part 2 CC (public calls for extremist activity on the Internet). The criminal case against Belousov was first reported in June 2022; the court later put him in pre-trial detention. The criminal prosecution was based on Belousov’s comments in the Piterskiye Kopateli [St. Petersburg Diggers] community on VKontakte that criticized the actions of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. Later, charges under Article 280 Part 2 CC were added to his case based on three comments. In one of them, Belousov called Vladimir Putin a war criminal, in the second one, he spoke of Putin’s involvement in the murder of civilians in Ukraine, and in the third comment, as part of a dispute with another social network user who accused Ukrainians of trying to “ban the Russian language,” Belousov rhetorically asked whether the appropriate response required the destruction of Russian-speaking cities of Ukraine. Law enforcement agencies and the court interpreted the latter statement as a call for the destruction of Kharkiv and Mariupol. In the ruling under Article 280 CC related to the first two episodes, the court relied on the provision of the Law on Countering Extremist Activity, according to which publicly falsely accusing state officials of extremism constitutes extremist activity. We believe that the law should have no place for such a provision. False accusations of any crime brought by one person against another, regardless of the social status of either party, can be reviewed in court as a libel case (which code should include the article on slander is a question that requires a separate discussion). It should also be noted that Article 280 CC punishes calls for extremist activity. However, Belousov's statement about the president being a criminal contained no appeals. As for the statement about Russian-speaking cities, the court’s decision contradicts the Supreme Court recommendations on the application of Article 280 CC by clearly ignoring the context, that is, the unfolding of the dialogue between the opponents, which is necessary to evaluate Belousov's remark.
• On March 30, the Timiryazevsky District Court of Moscow sentenced retiree Mikhail Simonov to seven years in a minimum-security penal colony under paragraph “e” o Article 207.3 Part 2 CC with a four-year ban on administering Internet resources. The criminal prosecution was based on his VKontakte comments on the military operation in Ukraine – in particular, his posts about the events in Kyiv and Mariupol.

In March, law enforcement agencies opened a number of new criminal cases under Article 207.3 CC, but so far only two cases are known to involve paragraph “e” of Part 2. Viktor Moskalyov, deputy head of the MIPT Science and Technology Center, became a defendant in such a case for his statements on the e-xecutive.ru website about the actions of the Russian armed forces in Ukrainian cities and political scientist Abbas Gallyamov – for his interview with Ukrainian journalists about the events in Bucha and Kramatorsk.

Vandalism Motivated by Hatred

We doubt the validity of sanctions for vandalism motivated by political hatred. In our opinion, in most cases, these actions represent a form of political propaganda. As noted above, we believe that this motive is only appropriate as an aggravating circumstance in the articles related to the use of violence. Additionally, in our opinion, unless the property damage is significant, vandalism cases should be terminated for insignificance. If the damage was significant but relatively minor, we suggest introducing an article similar to Article 7.17 CAO that penalizes destruction or damage of other people's property or amending Article 7.17. The termination of the case with the imposition of a judicial fine could also be a reasonable compromise.

Last month, we recorded three sentences under Article 214 Part 2 CC against four people; none of them were associated with significant damage.

• Back on January 12, a Magistrate of Court District No. 3 in the Belovo City Judicial District of the Kemerovo Region sentenced Sergei Khozyaykin to six months of restriction of freedom. The verdict states that Khozyaykin threw the shells from two eggs, at a banner with the image of Vladimir Putin that decorated a wall of the village shopping center. The shells were filled with red enamel, “thus imitating blood as a symbol of bloodshed and violence,” so Khozyaykin acted “with the aim of creating false associations and inciting hatred and enmity in an indefinitely wide group of people.” As a result of Khozyaykin's actions, the administration of the Belovo urban district suffered material damage in the amount of 3,331 rubles and 17 kopecks.
• On March 1, a magistrate of Court District No. 11 in the Sovetsky Judicial District of Kazan sentenced Vladislav Vakhitov to nine months of restriction of freedom for spray-painting 12 anti-war graffiti on the streets of Kazan. Vakhitov pleaded guilty to the crime and reimbursed the repainting costs. The victims (representatives of management companies) agreed to terminate the criminal case with the imposition of a court fine. However, the public prosecutor insisted that the use of the name of the sitting president and the anti-war nature of the statements made during the special military operation indicated an extreme threat to public safety and morality.
• On March 29, the Privokzalny District Court of Tula sentenced local paramedics Anton Zavadsky and Faik Khandzhigazov to two years of restriction of freedom and a fine of 180 thousand rubles from each defendant under Article 214 Part 2 CC and Article 280 Part 1 CC (public calls for extremist activity). The criminal prosecution of Tula residents was first reported in the spring of 2022; the court placed them under house arrest but then changed it to a more lenient preventive measure – a ban on certain actions. According to the investigation, Zavadsky and Khandzhigazov wrote anti-war statements “aimed at discrediting the use of the armed forces of the Russian Federation” in the lobbies of four residential buildings. Apparently, the statements contained calls against the military operation in Ukraine and for regime change in Russia. In addition, the activists distributed anti-war leaflets, the exact content of which is unknown. We have no information allowing us to evaluate the charges brought against Zavadsky and Khandzhigazov under Article 280 CC, which may have been based on the distribution of leaflets.

One case under Article 214 Part 2 CC was closed. On March 13, a magistrate of Court District No. 4 in the Voroshilovsky District of Rostov-on-Don discontinued the criminal proceedings against Kirill Skripin due to the expiry of the limitation period for the offense. According to investigators, Skripin, along with Mikhail Selitsky (sentenced in October 2022 under the same article to restriction of freedom and compulsory outpatient treatment) and minor Alexei I., placed the graffiti “Putin Is a Thief” on the walls of two houses. Skripin was arrested in March 2021 and spent several months, until September 2022, in pre-trial detention. In October 2022, he fell ill with tuberculosis, so the proceedings in his case were suspended.

Sanctions for Displaying Banned Symbols

On March 1, the Omsk Regional Court upheld the fines of one thousand rubles imposed on Alexander Scherbakov and Alexander Shipitsin under Article 20.3 Part 1 CAO (propaganda or display of banned symbols) for displaying on city streets a flag and a poster depicting an F-1 hand grenade commonly known as “limonka” crossed by a lightning bolt. Shipitsin was fined for this offense by the Kuibyshevsky District Court of Omsk on December 14, 2022, and Scherbakov – by the Tsentralny District Court of Omsk on January 13, 2023. “Limonka” crossed by a lightning bolt is the symbol of the unregistered party “The Other Russia of E. V. Limonov.” Law enforcement agencies and courts believe that it is identical to the symbols of the banned National Bolshevik Party (NBP), although the latter used the image without the lightning bolt. We view the ban against the NBP, issued in 2007, as inappropriate, so sanctions for displaying its symbols are, in our opinion, inappropriate as well. In addition, the symbols of The Other Russia of E. V. Limonov clearly differ from the well-known symbols of the NBP, and the law provides no punishment for displaying “symbols similar to those of an extremist organization.”

On March 16, the Leninsky District Court of Yekaterinburg placed politician Yevgeny Roizman under arrest for 14 days under Article 20.3 Part 1 CAO. The claim against Roizman was related to the video “Why is Putin imprisoning Navalny?” created by the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and posted on VKontakte. The video featured the symbols of Alexei Navalny's structures and was posted in the Yevgeny Roizman group. Roizman claimed that he had never used VKontakte and, accordingly, could not have posted the video in question. We would like to reiterate that, in our opinion, there were no legal grounds for recognizing the FBK, the Fund for the Protection of Citizens' Rights (FZPG) and the Navalny Headquarters as extremist organizations, and we regard sanctions for displaying the corresponding symbols as inappropriate.

On March 9, the Yefremovsky Interdistrict Court of the Tula Region fined local resident Irina Terekhova 1,500 rubles under Article 20.3 Part 1 CAO and 40 thousand under Article 20.3.3 Part 1 CAO for discrediting the use of the armed forces. The sanctions against Terekhova resulted from her posts on Odnoklassniki. She was punished under Article 20.3.3 CAO for her comment “Victory to Ukraine!” and under Article 20.3 CAO for an image that included a swastika. Unfortunately, we have no further information regarding the image, but if the swastika was used for political criticism and not for Nazi propaganda, then the prosecution against Terekhova under Article 20.3 CAO should be considered inappropriate. In our opinion, only those who use Nazi symbols for the propaganda of the corresponding ideology should be subject to punishment.

On March 21, it was reported that the Yalta City Court reviewed the case against Tatiana Ovsyannikova, a resident of Gurzuf under Article 20.3 Part 1 and Article 20.1 Part 3 CAO on disrespect for the authorities on the Internet and Article 20.3.3 Part 1 CAO on discrediting the army. She faced responsibility for her VKontakte posts criticizing the “special operation” in Ukraine. The total amount of her fines reached 66 thousand rubles. In one of her posts, Ovsyannikova compared the special operation symbols Z and V with Nazi paraphernalia. The post included a photograph of an SS officer in uniform with the appropriate insignia and a swastika, so Ovsyannikova used the swastika as a means of political criticism and not for the propaganda of Nazism.

On March 16, the Buisky District Court of the Kostroma Region fined local resident Dmitry Kulikov one thousand rubles under Article 20.3 Part 1 CAO for a video posted on VKontakte. The report against Kulikov was compiled for the video “Panki Hoy!!!” about the punk subculture, in which one of the characters was wearing a swastika-decorated T-shirt. Kulikov posted the video on VKontakte in 2012. We assume that he did not intend to promote Nazism by posting the video about the punk movement.

On March 27, the Zadonsky District Court of the Lipetsk Region fined Alexander Zaborovsky, the head of the secret unit of the local military enlistment office, a thousand rubles under Article 20.3 Part 1 CAO. He faced responsibility for a meme published on VKontakte back in 2010. It contained the text “Why did God take them away, and why do the CATTLE live??? ... the God That Failed...” and five photos: three photos of famous rock musicians who died early and, below them, photos of a skinhead raising his hand in a Nazi salute, and of a man with his head in a urinal. The skinhead in the photo was wearing a T-shirt with the Totenkopf (“death’s head”) symbol and the background was a swastika-decorated flag. Zaborovsky explained that he added the meme to his page because he was fond of rock music back in 2010. Obviously, the meme contrasted the positive image of rock musicians with the negative images of neo-Nazis and uncouth people, and Zaborovsky should not have been punished for his post.

On March 29, the Alushta City Court of the Republic of Crimea placed Nikolai Shilkov under arrest for 15 days under Article 20.3 Part 1 CAO. He got lost in the mountains and ended up on the territory of the Crimean Natural Reserve, where he was stopped by two rangers. To show the rangers that he had no prohibited items, he took off his backpack and clothes. As a result, they saw swastika tattoos on Shilkov’s shoulders and chest, which he made while incarcerated. We consider the sanctions against Shilkov inappropriate, since he had no intent to show his tattoos, but only displayed them when he undressed at the rangers’ request. We also note that demonstrating any symbols to two people should not be considered a public act.

On March 22, a commission on juvenile affairs in Barnaul considered the case of a teenager, whose actions were interpreted by law enforcement agencies as a violation of the ban on the public display of Nazi symbols. Reportedly, the teenager has not reached the age of administrative responsibility, so the commission did not punish him under Article 20.3 Part 1 CAO but only issued a warning. The teenager shared a post from the Lentach public page on VKontakte dedicated to the bracelet worn by Valery Zaluzhny the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. On the low-quality photo of Zaluzhny with the bracelet, one of the patterns on the bracelet looked like a swastika, however, as Lentach explained, higher-quality photos showed that it was not a swastika but a non-prohibited Scandinavian symbol. Obviously, the message shared by the teenager contained no Nazi propaganda, so the law enforcement could have refrained from pursuing the case.

Protecting Historical Memory and Traditional Values, “Enforcing Tolerance”

Sanctions for “Rehabilitating Nazism”

On March 1, the Ivanovo Regional Court, when considering the case of Sergei Volkov charged under paragraph “c” of Article 354.1 Part 2 CC (rehabilitation of Nazism on the Internet), dismissed the jury before they could announce their verdict. After receiving a verdict from the jurors, the judge first stated that the questionnaire contained contradictions and then – that one juror was possibly biased. Finally, he declared that the jury had been discussing the decided-upon but not yet announced verdict with the discussion overheard by the court staff. Volkov's defense believes that the judge’s actions were related to the fact that the jury found the defendant not guilty.

The case against Volkov was initiated in May 2022 based on a fragment of an online discussion published by Volkov a year earlier on his Telegram channel “Slavyano-yazycheskaya kul'tura segodnya” [Slavic Pagan Culture Today]. The fragment asserted that during the Great Patriotic War, German troops did not close the circle around Leningrad, so the Soviet authorities had the opportunity to send food there, but “Stalin abandoned the city as unnecessary and almost captured.” The author added that the charges related to the siege of Leningrad were dropped at the Nuremberg trials (it is true that the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal never specifically mentioned the siege of Leningrad). He also stated that until 1941, “Stalin and Hitler were firm allies,” and National Socialism “was rather strongly praised in the USSR” at that time. Finally, the fragment mentioned that Stalin was personally guilty of starting the war “no less than Hitler,” because he “stirred up this mess without expecting it to turn against him.”

In our opinion, unusual interpretations, ignorance, misrepresentation, even deliberate distortion of historical facts should not lead to criminal prosecution, unless they contain propaganda of hatred, violence and discrimination. We see no such propaganda in Volkov's post – he criticized the Soviet leadership but did not justify or praise the actions of the Nazis. Therefore, we are inclined to view the charges against the Ivanovo resident under Article 354.1 CC as inappropriate, although it is worth noting that some other posts on the Slavic-Pagan Culture Today channel had a pronounced ultra-right orientation and could have attracted the legitimate interest of law enforcement agencies.

On March 3, the criminal case under Paragraph “c” of Article 354.1 Part 2 CC (rehabilitation of Nazism on the Internet) was opened against unnamed employees of Memorial for rehabilitating Nazism. On March 21, searches took place in the homes of employees of the Memorial Society and the Memorial Human Rights Center who continued the work of their already liquidated organizations: Oleg Orlov, Yan Rachinsky, Nikita Petrov, Alexandra Polivanova (and her mother), Irina Ostrovskaya, Galina Iordanskaya, Alexander Guryanov and Alena Kozlova. After the searches, they were brought in for interrogation. Law enforcement agencies also searched Memorial’s premises on Maly Karetny Lane and Karetny Ryad Street.

It was reported later that the claims of law enforcement agencies related to the presence in the USSR political terror victims’ database, published by Memorial, the names of three people, one of whom was convicted of working for a German police detachment, and the other two were soldiers convicted of treason. The prosecution against Memorial was triggered by the appeal sent by the Veterans of Russia public movement to the Investigative Committee.

It is also worth noting that in January the pre-investigation audit under Article 354.1 CC was reportedly initiated for Yan Rachinsky, the former chairman of the board of International Memorial, which compiled lists of victims of the purges and was liquidated on December 29, 2021. Attempts to bring similar charges against him had taken place earlier as well. An audit of the organization under Article 354.1 CC was conducted in early February 2022, also at the request of the Veterans of Russia, who found Nazi collaborators in the USSR political terror victims’ database.

At that time, International Memorial was pointing out that the database of victims of political repressions contained no information about the victim’s biography before or after “whether they led a life of virtue or sinned – only the information about illegal politically motivated repressions against them.” Thus, for example, some people, who faced illegal repressions before the war, indeed subsequently collaborated with the Nazis, but “this does not negate the fact of illegal repressions against them and their subsequent rehabilitation.” At the same time, Memorial did not deny the presence of inevitable mistakes in its huge database of victims.

These considerations can be extended to the charges imposed in 2023. The names of Pyotr Dolzhenkov and Pyotr Dvoinykh (mentioned in the first complaint by the Veterans of Russia), the two soldiers convicted of treason, were taken from the Republic of Tatarstan Book of Memory, and the book’s compilers had no information about the January 2001 ruling by the Kursk Prosecutor's Office, under which Dolzhenkov and Dvoinykh could not be rehabilitated due to the nature of their crimes. Rudolf Naimiller, according to the declassified FSB archives, admitted that he had participated in the Nazi execution of civilians in Moldova, and was convicted for this in 1954. Memorial’s database listed him as a special settler and a persecuted German; Memorial had no data on his collaborationism and war crimes. The materials of the Naimiller case were declassified by the FSB of Russia in the Arkhangelsk Region only in January 2023.

We emphasize that International Memorial, in the course of its activities to preserve the historical memory of the political repressions in the USSR, never promoted or justified Nazism.

Several cases were initiated in March under Article 354.1 Part 3 CC (desecration of the symbols of military glory of Russia and insulting the memory of the defenders of the Fatherland) against the following persons:

• a resident of Kurgan, who drank alcohol near the Eternal Flame and used it to light a cigarette on March 1;
• a resident of Yoshkar-Ola, who trampled the pedestal of the Eternal Flame with his feet in the Central Park of Culture and Recreation on March 14;
• A 16-year-old teenager from Ulan-Ude registered in a drug rehabilitation clinic, who in the early morning of March 24 climbed onto the monument to the Red Guards and partisans who fell in the battles to liberate Verkhneudinsk “from Japanese-American interventionists and Semyonov gangs” in March 1920. The boy danced on the monument showing obscene gestures and repeatedly shouting “Glory to Ukraine!”

The case against two Orenburg residents was initiated under Article 354.1 Part 4 CC (desecration of symbols of Russia’s military glory, committed by a group). On the night of March 27–28, they climbed onto a memorial, placed their feet on it, smoked cigarettes, shelled and ate sunflower seeds, and discarded their cigarette butts and shells “near the Eternal Flame.”

In our opinion, such hooligan antics deserve condemnation; however, criminal prosecution can be justified only in the case of crimes that pose a significant danger to society. Meanwhile, “desecration” of monuments, even if we interpret this term more widely than direct damage, in cases of significant public danger is subject to punishment under the more lenient article 214 CC (vandalism). In all the cases mentioned above the memorials suffered no damage, so the offenders should only have faced administrative responsibility – for example, under Article 20.1 CAO (disorderly conduct). It is also worth mentioning that the list of symbols of military glory has not yet been defined by Russian legislation – only the St. George ribbon officially holds this status. Additional questions arise in the case of the teenager in Ulan-Ude. It is not clear why the monument to people who died in the Civil War was classified as a symbol of Russia's military glory, and how the boy’s actions were related to advocating Nazism.

Prosecution for “Insulting the Feelings of Believers”

In our opinion, the vague concept of “insulting the religious feelings of believers” added to Article 148 CC does not and cannot have a clear legal meaning; the statements that contain signs of inciting hatred towards representatives of specific religions can be punished under Article 20.3.1 CAO.

In March, we learned about four criminal cases under Article 148 Part 1 CC (public actions expressing clear disrespect for society and committed in order to offend the religious feelings of believers).

• On March 1, reports appeared that a case had been opened against activist Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of the Pussy Riot collective. A series of search raids took place as part of the investigation, and the activist was put on the wanted list on March 29. The charges were based on Tolokonnikova’s posts on social networks, but there was no information as to which ones.
• On March 14, it became known that the investigation of the criminal case opened against a resident of Abakan was completed. The case was submitted to the court for consideration on the merits. According to investigators, in 2016–2021, the Abakan resident posted on a social network 23 drawings and photographs that distorted and defamed the generally recognized symbols and attributes of Christianity and insulted the religious feelings of believers.
• On March 17, a criminal case was initiated against a resident of the Suzdalsky District of the Vladimir Region. According to investigators, he published on Odnoklassniki the materials that “mocked the religious feelings of Christians and were aimed at insulting their religious feelings.” Allegedly, the defendant admitted that, as an atheist, he felt hostility “toward believers in general and Christianity in particular.”
• On March 30, we found out that a criminal case had been opened against Intigam Aliev, the nephew of Sayad Aliev, a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Leningrad Region. Earlier, a case was opened against him under Article 318 Part 1 CC (use of violence against an official representative). The criminal prosecution was based on an incident that occurred at the end of March. The St. Petersburg resident, moving around the city by car, stopped at a pedestrian crossing, approached another driver and started a conversation with him speaking in negative terms about “Russians” and “Christians” and calling them “fascists” for their military activity in Ukraine. The conversation was recorded on a video, and, on March 28, the second driver posted the recording on the Internet. Later, the police tried to detain the offender, but he used force against them and fled. They managed to detain him on April 4, when he tried to leave the region. We view prosecution against him under Article 148 Part 1 CC as unlawful, since this article punishes public actions, and a conversation between two drivers can hardly be characterized as such. If the second driver found this conversation offensive, he could apply to the police with a request to bring the St. Petersburg resident to justice under Article 5.61 CAO (insult).

Banning Materials from Online Distribution

On March 28, the Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg satisfied the prosecutorial claim and declared information found on many internet locations prohibited for distribution in Russia. The information in question was an image, in multiple copies, with a statement, ostensibly authored by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, which negatively characterized anti-communists, Indeed, in an obituary on the death of his philosopher friend Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, describing his beliefs of a certain period, wrote that he had believed that “un anticommuniste est un chien” (“any anti-communist is a dog,” the Russian version of the meme contained the word “svoloch” (bastard)). The court started reviewing the claim on September 20, 2022. Initially, the prosecutor's office demanded a ban on copies of the image located at 42 separate Internet addresses. Alexei Filippov, a member of the local city committee of the Communist Party, became an administrative defendant in the case. In February of the same year, he was fined under Article 20.3.1 CAO for inciting hatred based on his VKontakte post with this image. Later, several legal entities, on whose resources the controversial content was posted, also became defendants in the case. However, Filippov and MT LLC, who voluntarily removed the image from their pages, managed to get themselves removed from the defendants’ list. The investigation tried to bring in Sergei Fokin, the professor of the St. Petersburg State University of Economics who translated Sartre's statements into Russian, as a person of interest in the case, but he ignored the subpoenas. As a result, the court banned access to six resources that published the quote. We view this decision as inappropriate. On the one hand, it is not clear why the prosecutor's office went to court with a demand to declare certain copies of the image prohibited for distribution, while a different procedure is in place for banning materials that incite hatred – that is, recognizing such materials as extremist. On the other hand, the statement about anti-communists contains no aggressive appeals, and, in our opinion, anti-communists, as well as adherents of other political views should not be considered a vulnerable social group that requires special protection from manifestations of hatred. Therefore, we believe that there were no grounds for the prohibition of this statement, as well as for sanctioning the Internet users who published it.

Persecution against Religious Organizations and Believers

Jehovah's Witnesses

In March, prosecutions against Jehovah's Witnesses continued on the charges of involvement in the activities of local religious organizations banned as extremist. We believe that the decision to ban them had no legal grounds and consider it a manifestation of religious discrimination. It is worth reminding that the ECHR ruled on the Jehovah's Witnesses’ complaint in June 2022. The decision stated that the ban on Jehovah's Witnesses materials and organizations and sanctions against believers violated the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The ECHR demanded the end to the criminal cases under Article 282.2 CC against Jehovah's Witnesses and the release of imprisoned believers.

Courts in various regions passed eight sentences against 14 believers:

• On March 17, the Sosnovoborsk City Court of Krasnoyarsk Krai found Yuri Yakovlev guilty under Article 282.2 Part 1 CC (organizing the activities of an extremist organization) and sentenced him to six years in a minimum-security penal colony;
• On March 23, the Tsentralny District Court of Komsomolsk-on-Amur issued five-year suspended sentences with a two-year probationary period to Tatyana Svoboda, Tatyana Bondarenko and Yelena Nesterova under Article 282.2 Parts 1.1 and 2 CC (involvement of others in the activities of an extremist organization and participation in it);
• On March 23, the Apatity City Court of the Murmansk Region sentenced Denis Merkulov to a fine of 500 thousand rubles under Article 282.2 Part 1 CC;
• On March 24, the Zheleznodorozhny District Court of Krasnoyarsk sentenced Natalia Voropaeva to a fine of 360 thousand rubles under Article 282.2 Part 2 CC;
• On March 27, the Sovetskaya Gavan City Court of Khabarovsk Krai sentenced Alexei Ukhov to six and a half years in a minimum-security penal colony under Article 282.2 Part 1 CC;
• On March 28, the Birobidzhansky District Court of the Jewish Autonomous Okrug issued a suspended sentence of two and a half years to Natalia Kriger under Article 282.2 Part 2 CC. Kriger’s case was a retrial. Earlier, in July 2021, the same court imposed the same sentence on her, but the cassation instance overturned the lower court's decision and the case was sent for a retrial;
• On March 31, the Belovo City Court of the Kemerovo Region sentenced Sergei Ananin to six years in a minimum-security penal colony under Article 282.2 Part 1 CC;
• On March 31, the Babushkinsky District Court of Moscow sentenced four believers – Yuri Chernyshev, Ivan Tchaikovsky, Vitaly Komarov and Sergei Shatalov – to six years and three months each in a minimum-security penal colony under Article 282.2 Part 1 CC; Vardan Zakaryan was sentenced to four years and three months of imprisonment under Article 282.2 Part 1.1 CC.

Appellate instances significantly changed several earlier verdicts. Thus, on March 1, the Stavropol Regional Court changed the sentence to Viktor Zimovsky and Anatoly Gezik. Earlier, the Georgievsk City Court had sentenced Zimovsky to six years and two months in a minimum-security penal colony; the regional court converted it to a suspended sentence of six years and two months. Anatoly Gezik was originally sentenced to four years and two months of compulsory labor, but the court of appeal changed the verdict to a suspended sentence of the same length. The punishment imposed by the same court decision on his wife Irina Gezik – the suspended sentence of four years and two months – was left unchanged.

On March 23, the Chelyabinsk Regional Court, having re-examined the case of Lyudmila Salikova from Snezhinsk, decided to reduce her suspended sentence from six to two and a half years with a three-year probationary period, reclassifying her charge from Part 1 to Part 2 of Article 282.2 CC

On March 14, the Supreme Court of Russia overturned the acquittal of Alexander Pryanikov, Venera Dulova and Daria Dulova sending their case under Article 282.2 Part 2 CC to the appellate instance for review. Previously, the appellate court overturned the guilty verdicts against the believers twice, and this decision was approved in cassation, but the prosecutor's office took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. Now it will return to the Sverdlovsk Regional Court. All three believers are also defendants in another criminal case.

Two new cases were reported in March. On March 5, as part of the investigation of a criminal case under Article 282.2 CC, search raids took place at ten separate addresses in Vladivostok. According to the Investigative Committee, six people were placed under travel restrictions, and the law enforcement intended to take four others into custody. Jehovah's Witnesses later reported that Yury Byche and Sergei Novoselov were sent to a pre-trial detention center, and Yegor Pogrebnyak was placed under house arrest. The court imposed on the fourth person involved in the case a preventive measure in the form of a ban on certain actions.

On March 3, Alexei Pasynkov’s home was searched in Stavropol. As it turned out, he became a suspect under Article 282.2 Part 1 CC back on December 8, 2022.

In addition, on March 23, a new wave of searches took place in Kingisepp of the Leningrad Region, as part of a criminal case opened on February 20. Five believers were detained after interrogations: Igor Shevlyuga, Miroslav Sabodash, Konstantsiya Vovk, Tatyana Stepanova and Alexander Vaganov; four of them face bans on certain actions. Earlier, in February, four people were sent to a pre-trial detention center and one was placed under travel restrictions.

Followers of Said Nursi

On March 13, the Naberezhnye Chelny City Court issued a verdict against local residents Khunar Agaev, Aidar Sageev and Amrakh Akhmedov finding them guilty of involvement in the banned religious association Nurcular. The court sentenced Agaev and Sageev to two and a half years in a minimum-security penal colony under Article 282.2 Part 1 CC; Akhmedov received a suspended sentence of a year and a half under Article 282.2 Part 2 CC. According to investigators, Agaev and his assistant Sageev organized a Nurcular “cell” in the city in 2020–2021, recruited new members, including foreign students, and possessed the corresponding literature. Akhmedov took an active part in the cell’s activities. We consider the ban against Nurcular inappropriate. It was recognized as an extremist organization in 2008 due to the inappropriate bans on the books of moderate Turkish Islamic theologian Said Nursi for promoting the superiority of Islam over other religions. In 2018 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russian courts violated Article 10 of the European Convention guaranteeing freedom of expression by banning these books. We also believe that Russian Muslims who study Nursi's heritage do not, in fact, constitute a single organization.

Hizb ut-Tahrir

The Southern District Military Court sentenced Ametkhan Abdulvapov, involved in the fourth Simferopol Hizb ut-Tahrir case, to ten and a half years in prison, finding him guilty of participating in the activities of a terrorist organization (Article 205.5 Part 2 CC) and preparing for a violent seizure of power (Article 278 with Article 30 Part 1 CC). Abdulvapov will spend the first three years in prison, and the rest of the term in a maximum-security penal colony.

We believe that there were no sufficient grounds for banning Hizb ut-Tahrir as a terrorist organization, since this party was never implicated in terrorist attacks. We view the charges against Hizb ut-Tahrir supporters under the “terrorist” articles of the Criminal Code, made solely based on their party activities (holding meetings, reading literature, etc.) as inappropriate. In our opinion, the fact that Hizb ut-Tahrir preaches the idea of creating a worldwide Islamic caliphate, in and of itself, does not provide the grounds for charging its followers with planning a violent seizure of power in Russia.