Bitsevsky maniac cannot be protected from teenagers

Roskomnadzor did not see a violation of the law in the activities of two communities of the social network VKontakte, which united fans, including minors, of the Bitsevsky maniac Alexander Pichushkin. Earlier, a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council, Eva Merkacheva, asked the service to block groups “with confessions of teenagers in love” to a serial killer. The agency officially informed her that such content does not violate the law. Mrs. Merkacheva is surprised by this response and intends to get the groups closed by the prosecutor’s office.

“I filed an appeal with Roskomnadzor about two groups on the VK network, where almost 4,000 users confess their love for the Bitsevsky maniac Pichushkin from morning till night,” HRC member Eva Merkacheva said on Monday. get off. And all this can be read – and read – by teenagers. One girl – I wrote to her – replied that she loved a maniac and would wait. It’s not clear what.”

Recall that the serial killer Alexander Pichushkin committed at least 49 murders in Moscow’s Bitsevsky Park. The first time he killed a person was in 1992, 48 more murders occurred from 2001 to 2006. In 2007, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in a special regime colony, and he said in court that he did not regret what he had done. In 2008, he filed a cassation appeal to reduce the term of imprisonment to 25 years, but the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation rejected the petition.

The Internet communities that Eva Merkacheva complained about are called “Alexander Pichushkin. Bitsevsky Gambit” and “Alexander Pichushkin and the Secrets of the Forest”. The first, open to all users, consists of 3080 participants. According to Ms. Merkacheva, “illustrations of murder weapons”, holiday greetings “on behalf of Pichushkin” and other serial killers, including Andrei Chikatilo, are regularly posted there. “In the first group, teenagers write. There are a lot of them, so I insisted on an immediate blocking, ”Eva Merkacheva told Kommersant. The second, closed community consists of 240 people. Group administrator approval is required to view posts there.

Ms. Merkacheva asked Roskomnadzor to restrict access to groups on the basis of Part 5 of Art. 15.1 of the federal law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection”. It contains 14 grounds for inclusion in the register of prohibited information. These include, but are not limited to, pornographic materials, information on how to make drugs or commit suicide, personal data of minor victims, materials on the sale of alcohol, as well as information “aimed at inducing or otherwise involving minors in committing illegal acts that pose a threat to their life.” “The address indicated in your appeal (of two communities in VK.— “b”) does not contain the information provided for in Part 5 of Art. 15.1 of the law “On Information”,” the response of the RKN says (available to Kommersant).

Mrs. Merkacheva told Kommersant that she was surprised by this answer. She will continue to seek to block the groups and “intends” to apply to the prosecutor’s office in the coming days. If the oversight agency agrees with the arguments of the human rights activist, the prosecutor will file a lawsuit in court, media lawyer Yekaterina Shmygina explains the procedure. She calls this method of blocking resources “more effective”, recalling the practice of judicial blocking in the Russian Federation and the recognition of information prohibited at the request of the prosecutor’s office. So, for example, it happened with an injunction against the distribution of a joke of the satirical publication Krasnaya Burda about bribes, she gives an example.

In an interview with Kommersant, Ms. Shmygina suggested that Roskomnadzor’s refusal to block the groups could be related to the authority of the service. “It should be understood that Roskomnadzor does not itself determine whether information is prohibited or not. Especially when it comes to controversial, non-obvious content,” explains Yekaterina Shmygina. For example, information about suicide is initially revealed by Rospotrebnadzor. And in the case of the involvement of minors in illegal activities, the participation of Rosmolodezh is necessary.”

Maria Starikova