Antifascist from Rostov-on-Don receives a warning about extremism

The prosecutor's office in Rostov-on-Don issued a warning about extremist activity to Konstantin Baranov, the author of the report on xenophobia and discrimination in the region ("Xenophobia and Discrimination in the Rostov Region in 2008. A Report on the Results of Human Rights Monitoring'). The warning has been received on February19th though it is dated February 9th.

The warning is a result of a six month long inspection carried out by the prosecutor's office on demand of the local department of education. The formal grounds were the indication of "the contacts of the National Bolshevik Party' (NBP) in the report. Those were the contacts of the NBP leaders of the region taken from open and generally accessible sources.

For some reasons, the prosecutor's office supposes that the access to the National Bolsheviks' contacts itself will attract young people to their ranks. But following the law instead of such suppositions, it must be admitted that indicating anybody's contacts doesn't break any laws including the one on counteracting extremist activity.

Konstantin Baranov who is the leader of a non-violent antifascist group in Rostov has been threatened by neo-Nazi for a long time. His address is posted on the Web together with calls for his murder.

The Rostov Region has recently become one of the centers of activity of ultra-rightist and openly neo-Nazi organizations including the ones that claimed their responsibility for the terrorist attacks occurred in Russia in 2009. However, the measures undertaken by the authorities to stop ultra-rightists' activity in the region can hardly be called sufficient. In these circumstances, it looks quite puzzling to give a warning about extremism to a consistent and non-violent antifascist for an analytic work focused on ultra-rightist groups' activity and attracting attention of the public and state to the problem.

Konstantin Baranov is going to appeal against the warning.