The image of Russia without Crimea was proposed to be considered extremism

The day before, news about a curious story that happened in the Far East of Ussuriysk spread on the Internet. On the map of Russia featured on the patriotic banner that adorned the city’s central square, vigilant citizens discovered the absence of Crimea. The banner was immediately removed, reprinted, the contractor, local authorities assure, was somehow punished there.

If two bills had already been adopted, which, by coincidence, were submitted to the State Duma on the same day by three United Russia members of the Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, there would be no problems in looking for an article under which both the contractor and the official who blew sedition could be punished would.

Since 2007, the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO) has article 20.29, which punishes “mass distribution of extremist materials included in the published federal list of extremist materials” and for the production and storage of such materials for the purpose of mass distribution. Fine from 1 to 3 thousand for citizens (with an unpleasant alternative in the form of arrest for up to 15 days), from 2 to 5 thousand for officials and from 100 thousand to 1 million rubles for legal entities (with an unpleasant alternative to suspension of activities for a period of up to 90 days). A list of extremist materials (books, articles, blogs, websites, songs and films are recognized as such by a court decision) can be found on the website of the Ministry of Justice. It now contains 5304 lines, the last one is dated at the very end of August 2022: by the decision of one of the courts of North Ossetia, the register included “a printed edition edited by Kostoev Kh.A. “Aspen Nest of the Caucasus”, Rostov-on-Don, 2020, 216 pages.

It is difficult to say whether there is at least one book in this register with incorrect, from the point of view of Russian legislation and the Constitution, maps.

According to the statistics of the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, in 2021, 1,526 people were punished under this article in Russia.

After the adoption of the bills introduced now, it can become significantly larger. In one of them, United Russia proposes under the same article and also punish in the same way for the mass distribution of “other materials classified as extremist” not included in the list of the Ministry of Justice by a court decision on the basis of laws. And the second bill in the law “On Counteracting Extremism” recognizes as extremist “cartographic and other images and products that dispute the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation” without any court decision and inclusion in the list of the Ministry of Justice.

The government supported the initiative of the deputies – in the official response to the bill that there are only two minor remarks about introducing amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses, which have already been taken into account.

“Recently, we see that maps and other images are being actively distributed, where the territorial affiliation of Crimea, the Kuril Islands, and other territories of our country is disputed. It is especially dangerous when such materials are designed for a children’s audience – as was the case with children’s photo wallpapers sold in one of the popular retail chains, where Crimea was designated as part of Ukraine. Obviously, this is part of a hybrid war unleashed by the West against Russia. And the distribution of such materials as violating Russian law should be stopped,” one of the authors, head of the Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, Vasily Piskarev (“ER”) explained the motives of the authors. He recalled that these bills were developed on behalf of the Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, who had previously asked “to take response measures in connection with the distribution of such products”…

The explanatory note to the package of documents states that at the moment, extremist, not by individual decisions of the courts, but by other laws, are, in particular, “the works of the leaders of the National Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany, the Fascist Party of Italy, speeches, images of leaders of groups, organizations or movements declared criminal in accordance with the verdict of the International Military Tribunal for the trial and punishment of the main war criminals of the European Axis countries (Nuremberg Tribunal), speeches, images of leaders of organizations that collaborated with these groups, organizations or movements, publications substantiating or justifying national and ( or) racial superiority or justifying the practice of committing war or other crimes aimed at the complete or partial destruction of any ethnic, social, racial, national or religious group.” This means that for the mass distribution of all of the above, as well as, as we see, for the “wrong” maps and images of the territory of the Russian Federation, they will now be punished under the revised article 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses – if they are not punished, of course, under some other “extremist” article of the Code of Administrative Offenses , of which a great many have divorced in recent years.

Bills will no doubt become laws, and it would be good to understand in advance what is now impossible – so as not to be substituted in vain.

What is, for example, “mass distribution”? And how is it different from just “spreading”? As far as one can judge, in legal practice “mass dissemination” is the desire to acquaint with this or that information (in this case, with maps, say), an indefinitely wide circle of readers, listeners, TV viewers, spectators and just passers-by. If you follow this logic, then simply showing a book with a seditious map to a neighbor or relative, or sending it to a friend on social networks is nothing, not “mass”, it’s just “distribution”, which, according to this article, can’t seem to be punished. But to accompany your open-access blog or article with a seditious card, show it in a video or film – yes, it can.

Directors of libraries and bookstores will apparently have more problems: what, check all textbooks, history books? And the registry of extremist materials will not help, which at least allows you to navigate by name.

And what about books, textbooks, articles and atlases written or published before 2014, when Russia did not yet consider Crimea a part of its territory? Neither the texts of the bills nor the explanatory notes to them provide an answer to this question.

In addition, administrative law also has rules that prohibit punishment for actions that were not yet violations at the time of the commission. But at the same time, there are many cases where this rule does not apply to materials posted on the Internet. Law enforcers and courts recognize by all the forgotten blog, written ten years ago, long before its content was found to violate any law, and not deleted so far, as a “continuing” offense, guided by the following logic: “it can be desire by someone found, viewed and read now, because it is in the public domain “…