The military operation on the territory of Ukraine, which began on February 24, occurred too late in the month to affect the enforcement of anti-extremist legislation in February. New restrictions on freedom of expression, both in legislation and in law enforcement practice, will be described in our March review.

Lawmaking

On February 22, the State Duma adopted in the first reading a bill establishing administrative responsibility for equating the actions of the USSR and Nazi Germany. The bill was submitted to the State Duma in October in connection with amendments to the federal law “On Immortalization of the Victory of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War” signed on July 1, 2021. The bill introduces a new Article 13.47 into the Code of Administrative Offenses. The first part of this article punishes citizens with a fine of one to two thousand rubles or arrest for up to 15 days, officials with a fine ranging from one to four thousand rubles, and legal entities with a fine ranging from 10 to 50 thousand rubles. In the event of a repeated violation, offenders face responsibility under the second part of the article. The proposed punishment for individuals is a fine ranging from two and a half to five thousand rubles or arrest for up to 15 days, a fine ranging from five to 20 thousand or disqualification for a period of six months to a year for officials, and a fine of 50 to 100 thousand rubles or suspension of activities for up to 90 days for legal entities. If the draft law is adopted, police and Roskomnadzor officers will be able to file reports under Article 13.47 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, and prosecutors will be able to open cases under it as well. The proposed wording of this new article of the Code of Administrative Offenses contains no clarifications as to which statements can be interpreted as “equating the actions” and “denying the decisive role.” We believe that establishing responsibility for an offense as described will lead to further restrictions of freedom of speech and suppression of a peaceful historical debate.

Sanctions for Oppositional Activities and Criticism of the Authorities

On February 15, 2022, the Lefortovsky District Court of Moscow, at its visiting session in Corrective Colony No. 2 in the Vladimir Region, began to consider the criminal case of Alexei Navalny. The charges against him include four episodes of fraud (swindling) on an especially large scale (Article 159 Part 4 of the Criminal Code) and contempt of court (Article 297 Parts 1 and 2 of the Criminal Code). The public prosecutor stated at the session that Navalny and others had collected donations for the 2018 election campaign while aware that his outstanding criminal record disqualified him from running for office. The prosecution believes that this goal served only as a cover for raising funds that were used both for personal purposes and to support the activities of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and the Citizens Rights Defense Fund (FZPG), subsequently recognized in court as extremist. Therefore, the state prosecutor argued, “Navalny and other persons acted with self-serving and extremist intent.” The FBK, the FZPG, and the Alexei Navalny Headquarters public movement were recognized as extremist organizations on June 9, 2021; the ban against them came into force on August 4. In our opinion, the decision to ban Navalny's organizations as extremist lacked sufficient legal grounds. Therefore, we believe that Navalny's actions were inappropriately qualified as committed with extremist intent.

On the first day of February, several Russian media resources reported that they had received notifications from Roskomnadzor about the need to delete the information upon request by the Prosecutor General's Office dated January 28. The request was based on the law expanding the grounds for extrajudicial blocking signed by the president on December 30, 2021, which stipulated that materials justifying extremist activities can be blocked. The prosecutorial claims targeted the materials that were related to the investigations conducted by Alexei Navalny's supporters in 2017 through 2020. According to the prosecutor's office, these publications contain information materials produced by an organization recognized as extremist (the FBK). The publications subject to removal primarily discussed the real estate that, according to the investigations, had ties to senior government officials, heads of state corporations and their relatives. The materials even included a note published by Znak.com, in which Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov characterized the investigation on the Gelendzhik palace as “nonsense and a compilation.” The editors of the Echo of Moscow radio station received 34 notifications about the need to remove materials from their website; Meduza received 17 such notifications, Znak.com – 13, Svobodnye Novosti – nine, and Dozhd – six notifications. Novaya Gazeta and Vesma portal in Magadan received the notifications as well. All these resources later reported that they had complied with the Roskomnadzor’s requests. In early February, Roskomnadzor sent a notification to the editors of Current Time TV demanding that 14 materials written in 2016–2021 based on Alexei Navalny’s FBK investigations as well as an article about the Levada Center poll and the Meduza investigation of Putin's visit to the Gelendzhik residence be removed within 24 hours. Similar notices were received in the same days by other projects of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Russian Service (about 40 notices) and by the RFE/RL Ukrainian, Tajik, Kazakh and Tatar-Bashkir services. The media corporation refused to comply with Roskomnadzor’s requirements.

In early February, the Moskovsky District Court of Cheboksary fined local blogger Alexei Radchenko, the creator of the Cheb.ru website, a thousand rubles under Article 20.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (propaganda or displaying symbols of extremist organizations). The charges were based on his Facebook post of February 2021, which contained a screenshot from the introduction to the documentary “He Is Not Dimon to You.” The screenshot includes an image of Dmitry Medvedev, the name of the investigation and the caption “Anti-Corruption Foundation” (FBK), followed by a large red dot (the FBK logo). Also in February, Radchenko was fined twice under Article 13.15 Part 2 (mentioning an extremist organization without specifying its status) for his posts mentioning Navalny's organizations, including the same Facebook post and the tweet from 2017 about the opening of the Navalny headquarters in Cheboksary. Yet another case against Radchenko, opened under Article 13.15 Part 2, was based on the news article about the arrest of the local Navalny headquarters coordinator published on a resource, which was part of Cheb.ru, in January 2021 – that is, before the Navalny headquarters were recognized as extremist organizations. This case was dropped after the FSB representative told the court, that the fact of this information being posted on the website by Radchenko had never been confirmed; the prosecutor's office subsequently filed a motion to dismiss the case.

In early February, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow placed Daria Serenko, a women’s rights activist, under arrest for 15 days under Article 20.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses; the Moscow City Court upheld this decision in mid-February. The law enforcement claims pertained to Serenko’s Instagram post of September 16, 2021, which contained the Smart Voting symbols regarded by the law enforcement as symbols of Navalny’s banned organizations. Earlier, Serenko had announced that she entered a municipal deputies school. However, persons found guilty under Article 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses lose their right to run for office for one year counted from the moment the decision on their administrative offense took effect.

A report under Article 20.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses was compiled against Nikolai Kuzmin, a Pskov municipal deputy in mid-February. It was based on two VKontakte posts made in 2017, which, according to law enforcement agencies, contained the symbols of the banned Navalny headquarters movement. However, on the first day of March, the case was dismissed due to the expiry of the limitation period. It is worth reminding that, in 2021, Kuzmin was removed from the elections to the Pskov Legislative Assembly and excluded from Yabloko’s federal list for the State Duma elections due to his involvement in the activities of Navalny's organizations.

In early February, the Maykop City Court of the Republic of Adygea fined local resident Dmitry Konnov 1,500 rubles under Article 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (mass distribution of extremist materials) for sharing on VKontakte the banned video “Let’s Remind Crooks and Thieves about Their Manifesto-2002” created by supporters of Alexei Navalny. This video, banned as extremist, merely lists a number of unrealized campaign promises made by United Russia in its 2002 draft manifesto and calls to vote for any party other than United Russia. We regard the prohibition of this video as unfounded and the sanctions for its distribution as inappropriate.

It was reported in mid-February, that an administrative offense case under Article 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses was initiated in January in Volgograd against activist Yevgeny Kochegin, the head of the Your Watch (Vash Dozor) movement and an ex-coordinator of Navalny's headquarters. The case was based on the materials of the regional Center for Countering Extremism. In December 2021, after “Kill the Beggars!” by the Russian punk band Pornofilmy was declared extremist, Kochegin published several Telegram posts in support of the band, one of which contained the banned song. In our opinion, this satirical song was banned inappropriately. In mid-February, the Volgograd Regional Court overturned the decision to recognize the song “Kill the Beggars!” as extremist and sent the case for a new trial to the Dzerzhinsky District Court of Volgograd, which had originally issued a decision on the ban. Accordingly, the case against Kochegin should be dismissed.

In early February, the Zheleznodorozhny District Court of Chita (Zabaikalsky Krai) issued a verdict against blogger Alexei Zakruzhny (Lekha Kochegar), charged under Article 280 Part 2 (public calls for extremist activity) and Article 212 Part 3 of the Criminal Code (calls for riots). He received a suspended sentence of two years and two months with a probation period of one year and 11 months, a two-year ban on posting materials online, and confiscation of equipment by the state. The case was opened based on a YouTube stream, in which the blogger criticized the pandemic-related ban on visiting cemeteries for the “parents day” and called for “demolishing the cordons” at the entrance to the cemetery grounds and thus launching a “bloodless revolution.” In our opinion, the blogger’s statement should not be interpreted as a call for violent actions. Earlier, in May 2021, the Trans-Baikal Regional Court overturned the prior similar decision of the same court and returned the case to the District Prosecutor, but then it went to the Zheleznodorozhny District Court for a new trial.

It was reported in early February that, in the second half of January, the Vinogradovsky District Court of the Arkhangelsk Region fined Maxim Okhlyuev ten thousand rubles under Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, finding him guilty of inciting hatred or enmity towards police officers and government officials. The case was based on Okhlyuev’s VKontakte comment, in which he negatively characterized the police officers as “Vlasovite polizei”, but did not call for violence against them. Okhlyuev stressed that he “expressed his opinion about the Vlasovite polizei, who are completely unrelated to the government authorities.” It is worth reminding here that the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly noted that law enforcement officers should be extremely tolerant of criticism unless it involves a real threat of violence. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in its Resolution of June 28, 2011 “On Judicial Practice in Criminal Cases Concerning Crimes of Extremism” also emphasized, citing the ECHR practice, that the permissible limits for criticizing civil servants in the media are wider than the permissible limits for criticizing private individuals; we believe that this clarification should be extended to apply not just to mass media. We are also in favor of excluding the vague concept of “social group” from anti-extremist legislation altogether.

In early February, the Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg fined Alexei Filippov, a member of the City Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, 10 thousand rubles under Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses. The case against Filippov was based on his post of April 2017 on his personal VKontakte page, which contained an image with a quote that negatively characterized anti-communists attributed to French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. We believe that Filippov was fined inappropriately since the statement he cited contained no aggressive appeals. We also believe that anti-communists, as well as adherents of other political views, should not be considered a vulnerable social group in need of special protection from manifestations of hatred. As we have already mentioned above, in our opinion, the vague concept of “social group” should be excluded from the text of the relevant Criminal Code articles. Furthermore, Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses does not establish responsibility for inciting political or ideological hostility.

In early February, the Vologda City Court fined Yevgeny Domozhirov, an activist of the Together (Vmeste) movement, two thousand rubles under Article 20.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (public display of Nazi symbols) for a post made on the movement’s VKontakte community page. According to law enforcement agencies, the post initially contained an image of a man who resembled the President of Russia with a swastika behind his back. The activist's lawyer stated that the image was different and, moreover, was posted by someone other than Domozhirov. We believe that the sanctions against Domozhirov are inappropriate in any case, since there is no reason to believe that he is a Nazi sympathizer and posted symbols to promote such beliefs, rather than as a means of political criticism.

A report was compiled in late February against Alexei Safonov, chief engineer of the Svetly Ice Arena in the village of Kamenka of the Rostov Region, under Article 20.1 Part 3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses; he was informed earlier that day that he had been fired from his job. The sanctions followed his Instagram post made on February 24th. Safonov wrote that everyone was now witnessing horror and shame, and that the consequences of bringing troops into Ukraine would be catastrophic for the Russians; he wished the Ukrainians fortitude.

In early February, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow placed Olga Shalina, head of the Moscow branch of the Other Russia of E.V. Limonov, under arrest for 15 days under Article 20.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (public display of prohibited symbols) for an Instagram post with the party symbols. the Moscow City Court upheld this decision in mid-February. The Other Russia of E. V. Limonov is an unregistered party that has not been banned, but law enforcement agencies believe that its emblem (a hand grenade crossed by a lightning bolt) is identical to the symbols of the banned (inappropriately, in our opinion) National Bolshevik Party (NBP).

The Tverskoy District Court of Moscow placed Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina under arrest 15 days in early February under Article 20.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses. The case was based on an image posted by Alyokhina on Instagram in May 2015. The photo shows three young women wearing hijabs; the clothes of one woman display the words “VODKA DUDKA ISLAM,” the bottom of the image displays, presumably, Arabic script, with swastikas to its right and left. The image is provocative, but not intended as propaganda of Nazism. In our opinion, sanctions under Article 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses are applicable only if the Nazi symbols are displayed in order to promote the corresponding ideology.

In early February, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs reduced the ban on comedian Idrak Mirzalizade's presence in Russia to 14 years. On August 27, 2021, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia announced that the presence of Mirzalizade, a citizen of the Republic of Belarus, on the Russian territory was undesirable for life. However, in October, the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow ordered the Interior Ministry to set a “reasonable” term for Mirzalizade’s ban on stay in Russia. The court decision was upheld in the appellate instance. It is worth reminding that Mirzalizade was expelled for public speech, in which he used “expressions that incite hatred and enmity towards persons of Russian nationality and degrade their human dignity,” for which he was sentenced to an administrative arrest for ten days under Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (inciting ethnic hatred). We believe that the grounds for the sanctions against Mirzalizade were insufficient, and a lengthy ban on entry into the country is an unreasonably harsh measure for an administrative offense.

The Fight against “Rehabilitation of Nazism”

In early February, the Investigative Department of the Tverskoy District Central Administrative Directorate of the Moscow Central Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation started a check of International Memorial at the request of the Veterans of Russia (Veterany Rossii) Russia-wide Public Movement. As early as December 27, 2021, the Veterans of Russia appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office and the Investigative Committee with a request to conduct an investigation and bring Memorial’s leadership and employees to responsibility for the rehabilitation of Nazism. According to the Veterans of Russia, the Memorial rehabilitates Nazism because it “immortalizes the memory of Nazi accomplices as victims of political repressions in the USSR by denying, deliberately suppressing and falsifying the facts of their crimes.” The claim is based on the assertion that the list of “Victims of Political Terror in the USSR” on Memorial’s website includes people who collaborated with the Nazis. Memorial indicates that the database of terror victims contains no information about their biography before or after – only the information about illegal politically motivated repressions against them. Memorial does not deny the presence of inevitable mistakes in its huge database of victims. However, this problem obviously has no connection to rehabilitation of Nazism. In its activities to preserve the historical memory of repressions in the USSR, Memorial has never promoted or justified Nazism. The very fact that such a check of this organization is being carried out once again illustrates how the vague wording of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code leads to unreasonable sanctions against citizens. In addition, a criminal investigation against the employees of International Memorial is clearly a part of an unprecedented campaign by the authorities against the organization including the decision to liquidate it. On February 28, this decision was upheld by the appellate board of the Supreme Court of Russia.

In mid-February, the Arkhangelsk Regional Court found 24-year-old Georgy Pesterev, a resident of Arkhangelsk, guilty under Article 354.1 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (denying the facts or approving the crimes established by the Nuremberg Tribunal) and sentenced him to a fine of 250 thousand rubles. According to the investigation, whose version was accepted by the court, from May 5 to May 7, 2020, the defendant “in order to cynically ridicule the idea of the movement and rehabilitate Nazism by approving war crimes committed during the Great Patriotic War and World War II” uploaded photographs of Hitler, Jodl, Keitel and Rosenberg to the website of the Immortal Regiment movement. The images of the criminals, which were to be displayed alongside veterans of the Great Patriotic War, were labeled with false names. We believe that Pesterev's actions were qualified incorrectly. He is likely to have uploaded photos to the Immortal Regiment website in order to “cynically ridicule” the action, however, in and of itself, the act of uploading photos of Nazi leaders to a website, even on the eve of May 9, in our opinion, does not constitute public approval of the Nazi crimes, denial of such crimes, or dissemination of any kind of information about the activities of the USSR during the war years – i.e. it does not constitute a crime under Article 354.1 Part 1 of the Criminal Code. As far as we know, the uploaded photos were not accompanied by any statements endorsing or denying the Nazi crimes.

In the second half of the month, the Smolensk Regional Court issued a suspended sentence of one and a half years to Vitaly Michurin under Article 354.1 Part 1 of the Criminal Code. According to investigators, he uploaded a photograph of Hitler to the Memory Bank website to be displayed during the Immortal Regiment online event.

In early February, a criminal case was opened in Ingushetia against local resident Dzhabrail Zulaev for a similar act under the same article (354.1 Part 1) of the Criminal Code. In mid-February, a 24-year-old suspect was detained in Nizhny Novgorod under the same article for uploading a photo of a German officer to the Memory Bank in 2020 and filling out a form for it to be included in the Immortal Regiment online event.

Sanctions for “Offending the Feelings of Believers”

In the second half of February, a criminal case was opened in Moscow under Article 148 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (public actions expressing clear disrespect for society and committed in order to insult the religious feelings of believers) against blogger Polina Morugina (Polina Face). Earlier, in December 2021, a report was compiled against her under Article 5.26 Part 2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (deliberate public desecration of objects of religious veneration) for posting online a photo of herself posing naked in front of the Church of the Intercession at Fili. However, in January, the magistrates’ court returned the report to the police to eliminate the violations committed while preparing it. As a result, a decision was made to open a criminal case. We believe that the case was initiated inappropriately. SOVA Center opposed the introduction of Article 148 of the Criminal Code on insulting the feelings of believers, since, in our opinion, this vague concept does not and cannot have a clear legal meaning. Morugina’s actions showed no signs of inciting hatred towards believers liable under Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, and she wasn’t charged with petty hooliganism under Article 20.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses at the time of filming, so, her actions likely did not disturb the parishioners or passers-by. Accordingly, in our opinion, there are no grounds for prosecuting her.

Persecution against Religious Organizations and Believers

Jehovah Witnesses

Prosecutions against Jehovah's Witnesses continued in February; the believers were charged with involvement in the activities of local religious organizations that had been banned as extremist. We believe that these bans have no legal basis.

• The Oktyabrsky District Court of Krasnoyarsk sentenced 64-year-old Anatoly Gorbunov to six years of imprisonment under Article 282.2 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (organizing the activities of an extremist organization);

• The Ussuriysky District Court of Primorsky Krai issued a three-year suspended sentence to Sergei Melnikov followed by two years' probation and eight months' restriction of liberty under Article 282.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code (participating in the activities of an extremist organization);

• The Kalininsky District Court of Cheboksary sentenced Vladimir Dutkin to a fine of 500,000 rubles, and Valery Yakovlev and Vladimir Chesnokov to fines of 400,000 rubles having found them guilty under Article 282.2 Part 1 of of the Criminal Code;

• The Kerch City Court of the Republic of Crimea issued a two-year suspended sentence to Jehovah's Witness Artyom Shabliy under Article 282.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code with a three-year probationary period, six months of restriction of freedom and a three-year ban on activities related to leadership and participation in public and religious organizations.

It should be noted that in February the Second General Jurisdiction Court of Appeal reviewed the prosecutorial appeal for the verdict, under which Jehovah's Witnesses Sergei Raiman and his wife Valeria received suspended sentences of three and two years respectively under Article 282.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code. Their case was sent to the Kostroma Regional Court for a new appellate hearing before a differently constituted bench.

New charges against Jehovah's Witnesses were filed in February as well:

• A criminal case under Article 282.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code was opened against Vladimir Baikalov in the Kemerovo Region.

• A criminal case was initiated in Krasnodar Krai under Article 282.2 Part 1 of the Criminal Code against Valery Vichkaev, Yevgeny Bochko and Vitaly Ushakov; the latter was arrested. Another believer was named a suspect.

Muslims

In early February, the First Eastern District Military Court issued a verdict under Article 205.2 Part 1 of the Criminal Code against Zofar Nodirov, an inmate in a Krasnoyarsk penal colony. He was already serving a term under Article 205.5 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (organizing the activities of a terrorist organization) for his involvement in the radical Islamic party Hizb ut-Tahrir, recognized as a terrorist organization in Russia. According to investigators, the inmate continued to “justify terrorism among inmates” in the colony. The court added three years in a maximum-security colony to his already existing term. We doubt the legitimacy of the inmate’s sentence. The Hizb ut-Tahrir party, recognized as terrorist in Russia, was never implicated in actual terrorist attacks. Therefore, we believe that, in and of itself, denying the terrorist nature of the peaceful party activity of Hizb ut-Tahrir (such as holding meetings, reading literature, etc.) should not be viewed as justification of terrorism. Most likely, this accurately describes the content of the inmates’ conversations.

In mid-February, Vadim Bektemirov and Zekirya Muratov were found guilty by the Southern District Military Court under Article 205.5 Part 2 of the Criminal Code (participating in the activities of a terrorist organization) and sentenced to 11 and 11.5 years in prison, respectively. Muratov was also found guilty under Article 278 in aggregation with Article 30 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (preparation for a violent seizure of power). Bektemirov and Muratov were detained in Crimea on charges of involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir in the summer of 2020 along with five other Muslims.

In early February, a criminal case under Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code was opened against two Crimean Tatars, Ametkhan Abdulvapov and Marlen Mustafaev; both were arrested.

In the second half of the month, human rights activist Bakhrom Khamroev, head of the Help (Pomosh’) human rights organization and a member of the Memorial Human Rights Center, was detained in Moscow and arrested the next day. Khamroev's house was searched, and his equipment was confiscated. A criminal case was initiated against him under Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code (justification of terrorism). The FSB Department for Moscow and the Moscow Region is conducting the investigation. In early March, searches in connection with the Khamroev case took place at the Memorial HRC and International Memorial. Khamroev has been defending the rights of migrants from Central Asia and Russian Muslims for many years, in particular those accused of participating in Hizb ut-Tahrir. Earlier, he repeatedly faced persecution under various pretexts.