The State Duma approved punishment for justifying extremism, despite protests from communists

At a meeting on Thursday, the State Duma adopted in the first reading amendments to the Criminal Code (CC) introducing liability for public justification or propaganda of extremism. Communists and Socialist Revolutionaries spoke out against the initiative of a group of deputies from United Russia. The bill was especially harshly criticized by representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, who claim that it is “political in nature” and fear persecution of citizens for singing the “Internationale” and approving the Decembrist uprising.

Speaking on the bill, its co-author Ernest Valeev noted that “in recent years, the influence of destructive structures on the Russian audience has intensified,” and therefore United Russia analyzed the legislation and discovered a significant gap: “We have criminal liability for justifying and promoting extremism only for certain types of extremist activities.” Therefore, the authors decided to expand Art. 280 of the Criminal Code, which provides for punishment for “public calls for extremist activities” (punishment – from a fine in the amount of 100–300 thousand rubles to imprisonment for up to five years), adding to this composition “public justification of extremism” and “propaganda of extremism” “

These concepts are explained in the notes to the updated Art. 280. Thus, by justification it is proposed to understand “a public statement recognizing the ideology and practice of extremism as correct, in need of support and imitation”, and by propaganda – “the activity of distributing materials and (or) information aimed at forming in a person the ideology of extremism, conviction in its attractiveness or perceptions of the admissibility of extremist activity.”

The relevant Duma Committee on State Construction and Legislation supported the concept of the amendments, said its first deputy chairman Irina Pankina (United Russia).

At the same time, she noted that both the government and the committee have comments regarding the “competition of norms” that may arise during law enforcement (earlier at the committee meeting, Ms. Pankina said that in order to avoid such problems, the bill needs to be finalized for the second reading).

As soon as the reports ended and the deputies were asked to ask questions, the communists immediately went on the attack. Anzhelika Glazkova expressed the opinion that the amendments “eroded the law and introduced uncertainty” and proposed “to create a working group to study the issue.” Ernest Valeev did not comment on this proposal, but emphasized that “the types of extremist actions are defined in the first article of the law on countering extremism.” “In principle, there is no opportunity for arbitrariness,” the United Russia member categorically snapped.

Deputies from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, however, categorically disagreed with this. Oleg Smolin complained that “in Russia an extremely broad concept of extremist activity has been adopted,” and recalled that this includes, for example, a violent change in the constitutional order.

“In this case, everyone who speaks positively, for example, about the Decembrists, about the leaders of the February Revolution, about the Bolsheviks, I’m not even talking about… Even those who speak positively about Boris Yeltsin can fall under the law, because, according to the conclusion of the Constitutional Court , his decree No. 1400 (on the dissolution of the Supreme Council in September 1993.— “Kommersant”) meant a coup d’etat. How many millions of people risk imprisonment under this law? Or will it be applied extremely selectively?” – Mr. Smolin asked the authors with proletarian directness.

Mr. Valeev avoided a direct answer and again referred to the basic law, which, according to him, can be amended “if there are problems with what is classified as extremist activity.” “And yet a number of experts believe that your bill may give rise to another wave of renamings. Let’s say, metro station “1905 Goda”, “Barrikadnaya”, Dekabristov Street and so on,” communist Nikolai Kolomeytsev took the baton from his comrades.

Andrey Kuznetsov (“A Just Russia – For Truth”, SRZP) suddenly became interested in how the bill “would regard the propaganda of Satanism, the holding of certain festivals, pseudo-cultural events.” Ernest Valeev replied that all these are “questions for law enforcement practice,” in which, according to his assurances, “there are no facts of either a broad interpretation or unjustified prosecution.”

“The adoption of the bill in this wording leaves no room for arbitrariness,” United Russia insisted.

Oleg Mikhailov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) returned to the Decembrists again. He referred to the Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism of June 15, 2001, which Russia ratified. According to the document, extremism is any act aimed at violently seizing power or changing the constitutional system of the state, the deputy said. And he also asked a specific question: “Will mentioning with a positive assessment of such events in Russian history as the Decembrist uprising, the February Revolution, the events of the State Emergency Committee of 1991 and the shooting of the White House in 1993, as well as such works of art as The Internationale, constitute a crime? ? But Ernest Valeev again did not succumb to provocation and explained that such issues should be considered within the framework of a specific criminal case, which, however, hardly reassured the communists.

Finally, Anatoly Wasserman (SRZP) said that Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (incitement of hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity) already “allows anyone to be convicted, including its authors,” so he personally cannot “vote for any measures to limit extremism,” and does not advise others . And the communists struck the final blow during speeches from factions. The same Nikolai Kolomeytsev stated that the expansion of Art. 280 of the Criminal Code “is of a political nature”: “We believe that if we perform “The Internationale” at our event, we already fall under the broad interpretation of your article. We believe that this bill has been introduced provocatively and has a political meaning.”

As a result, the project did not receive a single vote from the opposition: the Communist Party of the Russian Federation was against it, the Socialist Revolutionaries mostly abstained, and the LDPR and New People did not participate in the voting. Therefore, the amendments were adopted in the first reading exclusively by the votes of United Russia: 278 for (with the required minimum of 226 votes) with 54 against and 16 abstentions.

Ksenia Veretennikova