The bill on criminal charges for justifying and promoting extremism was adopted in the first reading

The State Duma adopted in the first reading a bill on criminal liability for public justification and propaganda of extremism. Communists fear that after the initiative becomes law, they will face up to five years in prison for both singing their party anthem “The Internationale” and for making approving statements about the 1917 revolutions.

The bill was submitted to the State Duma in July 2023 by a group of United Russia deputies, among them two vice-speakers (Anna Kuznetsova and Pyotr Tolstoy) and the heads of the committees on defense (Andrey Kartapolov) and security and anti-corruption (Vasily Piskarev).

Speaking on behalf of the authors, Deputy Head of the Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption Ernest Valeev (ER) recalled: “preventing and suppressing terrorism and extremism, manifestations of radicalism, especially among young people, is enshrined as a goal in the National Security Strategy.”

Implementing this policy, he continued, the State Duma has already adopted a number of laws on countering extremism, “including expanding the number of acts that relate to criminal extremist activity.” But a gap has emerged: criminal liability in Russia so far exists only for propaganda and justification of individual extremist actions (terrorism or separatism, for example). To close this gap, the speaker said, “public justification of extremism or propaganda of extremism” in general should be made a criminal offense and punished for this under Article 280 of the Criminal Code.

Currently, Article 280 of the Criminal Code punishes “public calls for extremist activity”: the minimum penalty is a fine of 100 to 300 thousand rubles, the maximum is up to five years in prison. After the proposed innovations take effect, they will similarly begin to punish for “public statements recognizing the ideology and practice of extremism as correct, in need of support and imitation” (justification of extremism), and for “activities to disseminate materials and (or) information aimed at creating a person has an ideology of extremism, a belief in its attractiveness, or an idea about the admissibility of carrying out extremist activities” (propaganda of extremism).

The Supreme Court and the government are in favor.

The first deputy head of the Committee on State Construction and Legislation, Irina Pankina (“ER”), proposed to support the concept of the bill, noting that both the committee and the government found in the text “some overlap with some existing compositions,” and for the second reading in order to achieve “legal certainty “The text will have to be revised.

Ivan Sukharev (LDPR) said that the best weapon in the fight against “all this, jokes in schools first of all” would be “an information blockade, that is, a complete ban on publications.” Ms. Pankina did not categorically reject this idea, although the bill dealt with something else: the basic law “On Combating Extremist Activities,” according to her, gives “a rather multifaceted definition of the phenomenon, and everything that will contribute to the achievement of security is welcome: goals are understandable, but the tools for achieving them may be different.”

In that very basic law, the concept of extremism includes as many as 13 definitions. This includes “violent change of the foundations of the constitutional system and (or) violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation”, and “public justification of terrorism and other terrorist activities”, and incitement and propaganda of social, racial, national or religious hatred and the commission of crimes for such reasons, and “obstruction of the legitimate activities” of government bodies, election commissions, public or religious associations, “combined with violence or the threat of its use”… Etc., etc.

Some deputies could not understand in any way what they would now be imprisoned for and what they would not be imprisoned for.

Anzhelika Glazkova (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) stated that the goal of the authorities should be “consolidation of society,” and the document being adopted with “vague wording” will hinder this. The bill is distinguished by its “specificity” and “there is no uncertainty or scope for arbitrariness” in it, Mr. Valeev disagreed.

Oleg Smolin (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) called the current concept of extremist activity “extremely broad” and asked “how many millions of people risk imprisonment, or the law will be applied selectively”: he personally believes that positive statements about the Decembrists and the February Revolution will also be punishable or the October Revolution of 1917, as well as the performance of the party anthem “Internationale”.

“If there are problems with the definition of extremist activity,” Mr. Valeev responded to this, it is necessary to discuss and amend the basic law. And to Andrey Kuznetsov (“SR”), when asked whether “propaganda of Satanism” and public events held by Satanists would fall under criminal liability, the United Russia member said that “the question of what acts will constitute signs of a crime is a matter of law enforcement practice.” .

According to him, there have long been criminal articles about the justification and propaganda of terrorism and administrative liability for the dissemination of extremist materials, “and there are not a single facts of a broad interpretation and unjustified prosecution.”

Only the Right Russians and the Communists wanted to speak out on the grounds. Valery Hartung (SR) stated that the faction cannot support the initiative. And Nikolai Kolomeytsev, on behalf of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, called the bill “provocative and political.” The “for” button was pressed by deputies from United Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party. The “New People” faction did not take part in the voting.