Murder committed based on political, ideological, racial, national hatred and liability under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

The punishment for committing murder can vary. One criminal receives only a few years in prison, while the other is sent to life imprisonment. Much depends on the method of committing the act. But criminal law assigns no less important importance to what the killer was guided by, his motives.

Murder motivated by political, ideological, racial, national hatred, as well as religious motives, is especially serious, and the punishment for it can even be life imprisonment.

Features of the composition

Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation defines murder as causing the death of another person and specifies two categories of crime:

• ordinary;
• committed under certain aggravating circumstances.

All special conditions are listed in the second part. Among them there are several aggravating motives, including hatred of an extremist nature (to race, religion, etc.). It is included in a separate paragraph “l”.

This point has a long history associated with the development of the fight against extremism, which began to be talked about especially a lot after the Second World War. After the tragic events of those years, international declarations and conventions were adopted establishing the need to guarantee all human rights and freedoms and protect them from any kind of discrimination.

When committing a murder of an extremist nature, two of the most important human rights are violated: to life, as well as to equality, regardless of one’s views, religion or social status. That is why the crime is included in a separate paragraph and has a severe punishment.

In order to be held accountable for committing such a murder, it is necessary to prove the presence of a motive. It is necessary to exclude the possibility of the existence of ordinary personal hostility towards the victim. To do this, it is established:

• the period during which the victim and the killer knew each other, how long they communicated;
• the presence or absence of conflicts that arose for another reason and were not related to religious, racial or other hostility.

Since the act has a clear motive, there is also intent to commit a crime. It can be direct and indirect. In the first case, a person is aware of the nature of his actions, anticipates the consequences and wants them to occur. In the second case, there is no desire, but the killer realizes and foresees that his actions can take the life of the victim.

Interesting! A clear example of indirect intent in a murder for extremist reasons would be the arson of a church. The offender is not trying to kill the people inside, but is aware that they may die.

Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (PPVS) dated June 28, 2011 No. 11 “On judicial practice in criminal cases of extremist crimes” notes one important feature of the qualification of such a murder. If the crime has a motive specified in paragraph “l” of Part 2 of Art. 105, then only he is taken into account, other reasons that motivated the killer are excluded.

Download for viewing and printing:

Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Murder”

Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Inciting hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity”

Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated June 28, 2011 No. 11 “On judicial practice in criminal cases involving extremist crimes”

Crimes qualified by the presence of extremist motives

The category of extremism from the point of view of its ideological content is reflected in the criminal law precisely through the concept of extremist motive, the commission of a crime based on political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or based on hatred or enmity against any social group.

So, the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation distinguishes two varieties of this motive, the motive of hatred and the motive of enmity. In general, these motives of hatred or enmity imply persistent hostility and (or) intolerant attitude experienced by a person towards other citizens, their groups due to disagreement with their views and beliefs, principles, due to their belonging to one or another: political party or social movement, or due to the belonging of other persons (or groups of persons) to a certain race, nationality, confession, religious association or due to the absence of other persons of any religion. It is precisely this understanding of the motive of hatred and enmity that can be seen in the draft resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, dedicated to judicial practice in cases of extremist crimes (clause 3 of the draft).

In Russian language dictionaries, “hatred” is defined as “a feeling of strong enmity and disgust”, “disgust, disgust, malice, strong dislike, enmity, malicious intent”; “enmity” as “relations and actions imbued with hostility, hatred”, “hostility, disagreement, malice.” Thus, hatred and enmity are considered as identical and interchangeable concepts, but it seems to us that for the purposes of criminal law they must be distinguished. In accordance with the understanding of hatred and enmity established in the science of criminal law, the latter represents external practical (conflict, destructive) actions, while the former represents the basis of enmity without specific actions. [1, p. 34]

In this case, a specific criminal manifestation of hatred or enmity may be preceded by a protracted open conflict between the perpetrator and the injured party (both the given victim and the social, national, religious group to which he belongs), however, it is not excluded that a specific crime became the first manifestation of the motive of hatred or enmity. [2, p. 9]

The criminal law allows for five types of motives for hatred or enmity: political, ideological, racial, national, religious hatred or enmity, as well as a motive for hatred or enmity towards any social group. It should be noted that these varieties not only have partially overlapping content, but are also often combined in practice, and this requires their correct definition.

Political hatred (enmity) is associated with rejection of political views that are alien to the perpetrator on the conduct of state foreign or domestic policy and corresponding activities to implement these views in the form of participation in the work of a political party or public association, in elections and referendums as a voter (referendum participant) ) or a candidate, in the work of state authorities and local governments. Political hatred (enmity) is not necessarily associated with the active political activity of the victim; victims of a crime may turn out to be simple bearers of political views.

Political hatred (enmity) is, as a rule, personalized in nature, that is, a crime is committed against an individually identified person. In this regard, it is necessary to distinguish from paragraph “b” of Part 2 of Art. 105 and art. 277 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which presupposes a special motive and purpose for committing a crime and a special status of the victim. In our opinion, if the victim is a state or public figure, and the act is committed in order to stop his state or other political activities or out of revenge for such activities, then the act is qualified under Art. 277 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. In case of murder for the specified motive (purpose) of relatives of a statesman or public figure, clause “b” of Part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (in relation to relatives of a statesman or public figure with a certain official position) or clause “l”, part 2 of art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (in relation to relatives of all government or public figures). [3, p. 886] The murder of a person who is not a state or public figure, or his relatives, but who occupies a certain official position, if there is a motive or purpose for the murder specified in the law, is qualified under paragraph “b” of Part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Finally, in all other situations, clause “l” of Part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Ideological hatred (enmity) partly includes political and social hatred (enmity), but it has a broader content, generally boiling down to rejection of a different system of views and ideas, worldview.

Ideological hatred (enmity) (as opposed to political hatred) is of a more abstract, non-personal nature, although criminal acts are committed, as a rule, against individually identified individuals.

One of the recent examples of qualifying a crime as committed based on ideological hatred and enmity is the case of the murder of lawyer M. and journalist B., in which the Kislovodsk City Court handed down a guilty verdict on May 6, 2011. T. and X. were found guilty, among other things, under paragraph “l” of Part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The convicts committed the crime based on ideological hatred and enmity in connection with M.’s active participation in the anti-fascist movement and his professional activities to protect persons adhering to anti-fascist ideology. [3, p. 34]

Racial and national hatred (enmity) are associated with rejection of another race (Caucasian, Negroid or Mongoloid) or nationality, treating them as inferior in comparison with the race (nationality) of the perpetrator.

O. D. Sitkovskaya defines racial, national and religious hatred or enmity as “the personal attitude of a subject towards representatives of another race, nationality (ethnicity), religion (confession), the content of which is the rejection of the values ​​of the corresponding group as having the right to exist along with his own ; a negative assessment of the way of life, traditions, and customs of this group as alien to normal human communication or even inhumane, savage; confidence that the troubles and misfortunes of one’s own ethnic group or confession are caused by the machinations of this group and that it is currently hostile. This personal attitude is based on the formation and reinforcement of appropriate ethical stereotypes, the transfer of factual observations of individual representatives of an ethnic group or denomination to integrity and, conversely, the automatic transfer of speculation about the actions and intentions of this ethnic group or denomination to any of their representatives. This attitude comes from a sense of the superiority of the group to which the person belongs, and the inferiority of the ethnic groups and groups towards which hostility is directed.” [4, p.]

Religious hatred (enmity) is the rejection of persons of a different faith (religion), objects and objects associated with a different faith (religion) (religious buildings and structures, other places and objects specifically intended for worship, prayer and religious meetings, places of religious veneration ( pilgrimage); religious literature, printed, audio and video materials and other religious items). A type of such hatred (hostility) is the hatred (hostility) of a religious person towards an atheist and vice versa, since Russian legislation guarantees everyone the right not to profess any religion. It should be agreed with the approach of judicial practice that it is possible to impute the motive of religious hatred (enmity) in the event of a crime being committed against representatives of the same religion that the perpetrator professes, if the victims, as the perpetrator believes, “deviated” from religious dogmas, “ fell into heresy,” etc.

According to almost generally accepted opinion in the science of criminal law, the most difficult to determine is the motive of hatred or enmity towards any social group. A social group is an association of people who have a common significant social criterion (attribute) based on their social status, participation in some activity related to a system of relations that are regulated by formal or informal social institutions. Such a group must have a clear distinction in the structure of society according to a sign that is significant for society (for example, gender, sexual orientation, age, profession (journalists, military personnel, police officers, etc.), type of activity (human rights activists), property, official status, political, marital status, level of education, lifestyle, culture and language, place of residence or origin, as well as a combination of these characteristics). At the same time, such characteristics should not include those that give the group an asocial character (for example, participation in extremist and other prohibited organizations, criminal groups, etc.). Moreover, a person can simultaneously belong to several social groups depending on one or another aspect of his life.

The perpetrator, acting on the motive of hatred (hostility) towards a specific social group, must, therefore, experience hatred (hostility) towards a specific common socially significant feature of such a group.

The uncertainty of this motive, which has already been repeatedly noted in the literature, leads to strange examples offered in the science of criminal law when, for example, theft, based on the higher level of income of the victim, can be considered committed based on hostility towards a social group. [5, p.41]

We cannot agree with this kind of approach; the extremist motive, based on the understanding of extremism that was proposed in Chapter One of this study, presupposes the desire to harm a social group (its representatives), weaken or destroy it.

The establishment of a corresponding type of motive of hatred (enmity) in a person’s actions presupposes that the motivation formed on the basis of hatred or enmity caused the person’s determination to commit a crime and manifested itself in it. Hatred or enmity, thus, arises before the commission of a crime, becomes its cause, then manifests itself outwardly in the actual commission of a crime, becoming the main, dominant motive in such a crime. Accordingly, qualification based on the motive of hatred or enmity is possible only in the case where hatred or enmity was the dominant motive of the crime, and was not externally present in the crime committed on the basis of personal hostility or hooligan motives. For example, a domestic conflict that arose between neighbors, during which one called the other a “chock” or another offensive statement, cannot be considered as arising from national hatred. In such cases, complicated by the apparent presence of several motives, it is necessary to establish the one that became the real and true incentive to commit the crime, the qualification in this case.

In this regard, the determination of the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in the case of B., convicted under paragraphs. “a”, “e”, “g”, “h”, “l” part 2 art. 105; Part 2 Art. 210, part 3 art. 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The panel of judges, excluding from the verdict B.’s conviction under paragraph “h” of Part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation drew attention to the following. As established by the totality of evidence examined at the trial, on the territory of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic a criminal community was created and existed consisting of religious paramilitary associations - Wahhabi jamaats (jamaat - usually means a territorial unit among the peoples of the North Caucasus, and Wahhabism will be discussed in detail in other sections of work), i.e. from autonomous stable groups as structural divisions. This criminal organization had as its goal the commission of grave and especially grave crimes and committed these crimes. It was distinguished by a large and stable composition of members; high degree of organization and cohesion; clear distribution of roles; had clearly defined leaders - “spiritual mentors”, whose authority was indisputable, whose orders were carried out virtually unquestioningly; was sufficiently highly and stably financed. B. took a direct and active part in the criminal organization, fulfilling the role assigned to him by the leaders of the community. As a result of terrorist attacks in the cities of Mineralnye Vody and Adyge-Khabl, committed by a criminal community, of which B. was an active member, 27 people died. Due to the fact that the main motive for B.’s criminal actions, as established by the court, was religious hatred, the Judicial Panel considered B.’s conviction for murder for mercenary motives to be unnecessary and subject to exclusion from the sentence. [6, p.111]

A perpetrator acting out of hatred or enmity may pursue several goals that differ in content. First, he may act with the aim of provoking further open conflict between representatives of different political, ideological, religious, social groups, races or nationalities. Secondly, its goal may be reduced to revenge for the transition of the victim from one political, ideological, religious, social group to another (obviously, this goal is impossible in relation to race or nationality). Third, its goal may be the “sincere” goal of eradicating or weakening the other; a crime in such cases can be committed either spontaneously or during mass clashes between different groups.

It should be noted that committing a crime motivated by hatred or enmity is not necessarily associated with the personal identification of the victim, who may turn out to be a complete stranger to the perpetrator, but a “stranger” to him. Personification of the victim, as mentioned earlier, is mainly inherent in the commission of a crime motivated by political hatred or enmity, although it is not necessary in this case either.

Thus, establishing extremist motives for committing an act allows us to classify specific “common criminal” crimes as manifestations of extremist activity. Let us note that in many cases crimes qualified by the presence of extremist motives are committed in... together with acts, responsibility for the commission of which is provided for in Art. 280, 282, 282.1, 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, since they are already direct manifestations of established extremist views and beliefs, a means for disseminating such views and beliefs.

In conclusion, we note that criminal legislation is obliged to prohibit activities aimed at committing crimes not only based on hatred or enmity, but also discord on ideological, political, racial, national, social or religious grounds as a less pronounced, but nevertheless quite negative attitude . The Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1926 (Article 59) and 1960 (Article 74 as amended in 1995) took this circumstance into account, and currently the Federal Law “On Combating Extremist Activities” defines the concept of “extremist activity (extremism) » directly uses the term “discord” (incitement of social, racial, national or religious hatred). Accordingly, when formulating extremist motives, it is necessary to use the motive of discord. Corresponding changes should be made to paragraph “e” of Part 2 of Art. 63 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, stated as follows:

“e) committing a crime motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred, enmity or discord, or motivated by hatred, enmity or discord in relation to any social group”...,

as well as those articles of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation that contain a similar qualifying feature of the crime.

Literature:

1. Kabanov P. A. Political hatred or enmity as a motive for a crime // Russian justice. 2011. No. 3. - P. 34.

2. Borisov S. The essence of extremist crimes // Mirrovoy judge. 2012. No. 4. P. 9.

3. Popov L.N. Murder under aggravating circumstances. - St. Petersburg: Prior, 2008. - P. 886.

4. Bidova B. B. Correlation of the principles of criminal legislation and criminal legal policy // Young scientist. 2013. No. 10. - S.

5. Egorova N. On the issue of new motives for committing crimes // Criminal law. 2013. No. 1. - P. 41.

6. Bidova B. B. Crimes of an extremist nature: criminal law and criminological analysis (using the example of the North Caucasus Federal District). Monograph. - Kislovodsk: Publishing House of the Master Center, 2013. - 224 p.

Features of the crime

The reasons provided for in paragraph “l” of Part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation can be divided into two parts:

• hostility due to political, ideological views, race and nationality;
• religious hatred.

The first part represents hostility to the characteristics of a particular person, that is, not to the individual, but specifically to his belonging to a race or nation or ideology hated by the criminal.

Such murders are loud, aimed at openly demonstrating their hatred. If their goal is to incite national or other hatred, then the crime is qualified under two articles at once, namely under paragraph “l” of Part 2 of Art. 105 and paragraph “a”, part 2, art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (a separate provision on inciting hostility). This rule is established in PPVS No. 11 dated June 28, 2011.

Important! If the victim belonged to any race unpleasant to the victim, but the murder was committed for personal reasons, for example, because of a domestic quarrel, then it is not subject to qualification under paragraph “l”.

Video about Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

Punishment

Murder motivated by political, ideological, racial, or national hatred is especially serious, which implies a high severity of punishment for its commission. The article has an alternative sanction and contains:

• imprisonment for a term of eight to twenty years with restriction of freedom for a term of one to two years;
• life imprisonment;
• death penalty .

Criminal legal significance of motives of hatred and enmity

Dautkereeva Markha Musaevna

3rd year student majoring in “Jurisprudence” of the Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education “Chechen State University”

Crimes motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or motivated by hatred or enmity against any social group (hereinafter, unless otherwise specified, crimes motivated by hatred or enmity) violate both the norms of international law, and the Constitution of the Russian Federation on equality and prohibition of discrimination. According to the Constitution of the Russian Federation (Article 19, Part 2), the state “guarantees equality of rights and freedoms of man and citizen, regardless of gender, race, nationality, language, origin, property and official status, place of residence, attitude to religion, beliefs, affiliation public associations, as well as other circumstances. [1, p.25]

Of course, criminal legal means have never been and will not become the main ones in suppressing or preventing crimes motivated by hatred or enmity. But they remain indispensable for protecting vulnerable populations and for holding accountable and punishing those who commit these attacks. Refusal to use them in necessary cases will be perceived as a weakness of the state, as encouragement for new attacks by criminals.

Indeed, as the events of recent decades show, interethnic, interracial and interreligious conflicts and wars are capable of destroying any state, even those in which the concepts of “friendship of peoples” and “internationalism” have been proclaimed for decades as the principles of operation of all state and public institutions. Despite this, unfortunately, even today one can find many practical solutions and doctrinal approaches that indicate an underestimation of the danger in Russia of crimes based on Nazism, racism or xenophobia, or their one-sided assessment. [2, p.342]

The motives of hatred and enmity in domestic science have previously become the subject of research. However, continuous changes and additions to criminal legislation, difficulties and shortcomings in the practice of its application, active discussions on the problems of responsibility and punishment for crimes committed for these reasons, and, finally, the unfavorable statistics of these crimes necessitate new research.

Having conducted a study of the criminal legal significance of the motives of hatred and enmity, we formulated the following conclusions:

The current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in 37 articles talks about: motives (compassion, hatred or enmity, blood feud, revenge for the lawful actions of others, pregnancy); motives (selfish, hooligan, other base); interest (selfish, other personal).

The criminal legal significance of motives boils down to the following: they can become a mandatory feature of the main element of the crime; they may be a mandatory feature of a qualified crime; motives not included in the crime shall be taken into account as circumstances mitigating or aggravating punishment. The criminal law concept of the motive for a crime should follow from the broader concept of the motive of behavior (activity) proposed by psychology, of which it (the crime) is a part. In the domestic science of criminal law there are various definitions of the concept “motive of a crime”. All of them, as a rule, consider motive as an incentive, that is, as a sign of an internal, mental element (subjective side) of the crime. [3, p.12]

We agree with those authors who define the motive of a crime through motivation (determined by certain needs and interests). Along with this, it should be recognized that in psychology there is no equal sign between these concepts, therefore the use of the concept of “motivation” as a synonym for the concept of “motive” should still be considered conditional. However, it must be emphasized that in relation to the goals and objectives of criminal law, such use, taking into account the specific role of motive in a crime, is justified.

In the criminal law literature, most experts agree that the motive for a crime is the motivation. Meanwhile, in certain provisions of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the legislator uses both the concept of “inducement” and the concept of “motive”. In addition, the Criminal Code contains the expression “interest,” which is also considered in the literature as a motive for a crime.

We believe that in all such cases there is an unjustified discrepancy. The terminology in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation should be unified. Therefore, one should agree with the proposals on the advisability of replacing the terms “motivation” and “interest” with the term “motive” in all norms of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

In the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the motive of hatred or enmity has the following criminal legal meaning:

a) is recognized as an aggravating circumstance (clause “e”, Part 1, Article 63 of the Criminal Code);

b) is a constructive sign of a crime (clause “b”, part 1, article 213 of the Criminal Code);

c) is a qualifying feature of crimes (clause "l" part 2 of article 105; clause "e" part 2 of article 111 of the Criminal Code; clause "e" part 2 of article 112 of the Criminal Code; part 2 of art. 115 of the Criminal Code; part 2 of article 116 of the Criminal Code; part 2 of article 117; part 2 of article 119 of the Criminal Code; clause “b” of part 1 of article 213 of the Criminal Code; part 2 of article 214 of the Criminal Code; part 2 Article 244 of the Criminal Code);

d) may be a sign of any crime, which is therefore defined in law as a crime of an extremist nature (Note 2 to Article 2821 of the Criminal Code).

In the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the concepts of “hatred” and “enmity” are used not only as motives for a crime. They are also spoken of as a result that the perpetrator strives for. We are talking about Article 282 of the Criminal Code, which provides for liability for “actions aimed at inciting hatred or enmity.” However, we believe that hatred and enmity cannot be both the motive of a crime and the result of a crime, just as they cannot be both at the same time, for example, selfish motives. We believe that in the norms of the Criminal Code the same concepts should have the same content. In this regard, the current version of Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation can hardly be considered successful.

It seems to us that the use of the concept “extremist motive” is not entirely correct. Firstly, just as there cannot be, for example, a “terrorist motive,” there cannot be an “extremist motive.” Secondly, the name “extremist motive” does not imply the essence of the analyzed subjective attribute – hatred or enmity. [4, p.58]

We also consider the use of the concept “ideological, political, racial, national or religious motives” controversial, since these motives may not always mean hatred or enmity.

The definitions of the motive of religious hatred or enmity existing in the doctrine have one serious drawback. They do not take into account the events of recent years, the rapid changes taking place in the sphere of social relations, their politicization and the strengthening of fundamentalist movements, especially the growing influence and importance not so much of religions in general, but of various currents and directions (confessions) within individual religious teachings (religions). ).

From our point of view, there should be no social groups other than those existing on racial, national, religious or other grounds in the analyzed norms of Russian criminal law. The reference to “any social group” makes the relevant norms of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation not only dimensionless, but also allows both victims (for example, representatives of national or racial minorities) and their potential or actual executioners (skinheads, fascists and etc.).

It is proposed that in all relevant articles of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation the words “on grounds of political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or on grounds of hatred or enmity in relation to any social group” should be replaced with the words “on grounds of racial, national or religious hatred or enmity or religious fanaticism."

Almost all modern states provide for increased liability for committing a crime, primarily against a person and property, motivated by hatred. The latter, as a rule, includes national, ethnic, racial and religious hatred (less often, political or other hatred).

Literature:

1. Alekseev A.I., Gerasimov S.I., Sukharev A.Ya. Criminological prevention: theory, experience, problems. - M.: Norma, 2001.- 325 p.
2. Criminology: Textbook / Ed. Debt. - M.: Yurist, 2003. - 428 p.
3. The state of law and order in the North Caucasian Federal District: The main results of the operational and service activities of the Department of Internal Affairs in 2015. – 241s.
4. Bidova B.B. Socio-economic and political reasons for religious extremism. Religious and political extremism and ways to overcome it // In the collection: State and law: theory and practice Materials of the II International Scientific Conference. 2013. - pp. 55-59.

Features of a murder committed on the basis of religious hatred

Every person is granted freedom of religion at the constitutional level.
This right includes both the opportunity to identify oneself with any religion, and not to profess it at all. Choice must be respected and accepted by everyone. But religious hatred exists and includes hostility towards representatives of a particular religion, towards objects and objects of their culture, and places of their gatherings.

Murders motivated by hatred related to religion are common. They are based on the intolerance of the offender, and can be caused by:

• the victim’s refusal to profess a particular religion;
• changing their religion;
• an attempt to impose one’s faith on the criminal;
• belonging to another religion, etc.

The victim may either be familiar with the killer or be his random choice based on belonging to a particular religious group.

Punishment

Since religious and other possible extremist motives for committing a crime are included in one paragraph, for committing murder because of religion, you can also receive as punishment:

• imprisonment ( 8-20 years ) with restriction of freedom (1-2 years);
• life imprisonment;
• death penalty .

Important! In Part 2 of Art. 105, the death penalty is listed as a possible punishment, but in the Russian Federation it is not currently applied, as required by international law.

CHAPTER 3. RELIGIOUS CRIMES IN MODERN CRIMINAL LAW

The concept and system of religious crimes

In the legal literature, the opinion was expressed that domestic criminal legislation does not know the institution of religious crimes. If religious crimes are understood as acts that violate religious norms, then one should agree with this position. However, such a narrow perception of any type (group) of crimes leads to a limited understanding of them. In this regard, the interpretation of religious crimes only as attacks indirectly or directly directed against God and other beings to whom religious worship is given, as well as violations of God’s commands, is not entirely correct. It reflects the oldest view of the essence of religious crimes. This view can conditionally be called canonical.

Based on the above concept of religious crimes, SV. Poznyshev at one time identified the following types:

• intentional coercion, through physical violence or the threat of an illegal act, to accept, reject, or renounce any religious belief;

• seduction into any religious teaching of persons who have not reached the age of religious self-determination and are brought up in a different faith;

• intentionally obstructing the performance of public worship with violence or threatening with an illegal act, intentionally interrupting it with any outrage;

• coercion through violence or threat of an illegal act to commit or not to commit any action related to the cult, to participate or not to participate in its commission;

• defamation or desecration by action of religious beliefs.

To the last group the author includes deliberate public defamation or desecration by action of objects of religious worship, religious beliefs, religious actions in which the participation of the deity himself is recognized, objects used during worship, as well as deliberate desecration of the church and places intended for worship.

An obvious drawback of the proposed classification is the inclusion in the group of religious crimes only of those that are aimed at established religious canons. The reason for this error is the narrow approach to the concept of religious crimes analyzed above.

The idea of ​​an expanded interpretation of religious crimes is not new. And she has already expressed herself repeatedly in legal, philosophical, and criminological literature. Attempts to correct the one-sidedness of the concept of religious crimes have been made in the legal literature more than once. Thus, positions arose according to which religious crimes were understood as encroachments on the rights of religious communities and their members; insults to those people whose beliefs and religious feelings are affected by these attacks; attacks on the general religious foundations of state order; attacks on religious personal freedom. These points of view differ markedly from the canonical approach to the concept of religious crimes, but they also have similar features. The fact is that most of the proposed concepts one way or another turn out to be one-sided.

Therefore, taking into account previous experience, sub-religious crimes must be understood as socially dangerous, illegal, guilty, punishable acts directed against religion, religious foundations, as well as those committed on religious grounds and for religious reasons.

Probably, the group of religious crimes should include all crimes committed on religious grounds or related to religious activities.

Depending on the direct object, religious crimes can be divided into the following groups:

• crimes against religion and church;

• violations of legislation on religions;

• ordinary crimes committed for religious reasons;

• ordinary crimes committed under the guise of following religious rituals;

• other crimes committed on religious grounds.

The first group should include acts that directly violate religious norms, in other words, directed against God's commands, as well as crimes against the church as a public institution. Modern Russian criminal legislation, like the criminal law of the Soviet period, does not know the elements of such crimes. This fact is explained quite simply. The Russian Federation is a secular state, and from this it follows that, firstly, no religion can be established as state or compulsory and, secondly, all religious associations are separated from the state and are equal before the law.” From this constitutional establishment follows the principle of mutual non-interference between the state and the church in the sphere of their activities. Therefore, it is quite logical for the state to refuse to regulate issues of liability for violations of religious norms and acts that encroach on the church organization itself.

The second group of crimes committed on religious grounds is violations of legislation on religions. Such crimes should include acts provided for in Art. 136 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Violation of equality of rights and freedoms of man and citizen), Art. 148 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Obstruction of the exercise of the right to freedom of conscience and religion) and Art. 239 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Organization of an association encroaching on the personality and rights of citizens). Combining these compounds and separating them into one group requires explanation.

The very idea of ​​creating such a group of crimes has already been expressed in specialized legal literature. At one time V.V. Klochkov, in his monograph “Combating Violations of the Legislation on Religious Cults,” proposed highlighting in the 1960 Criminal Code of the RSFSR a chapter “Crimes against the order of religious worship and crimes constituting remnants of local customs.” When creating the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in 1996, this proposal was not accepted, and the legislator remained in its previous positions, that is, it included these elements in various chapters of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Violation of the equality of citizens and obstruction of the exercise of the right to freedom of conscience and religion are included in Chapter 19, “Crimes against the constitutional rights and freedoms of man and citizen,” and the organization of an association encroaching on the personality and rights of citizens is included in Chapter 25, “Crimes against public health and public morality.” " This position of the legislator seems to us, at least not entirely correct. The elements of crimes provided for in Art. Art. 136, 148 and 239 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation have one direct object - legislation on religions.

It should be noted that the legislation on religions here means a set of legal acts regulating public relations in the sphere of religious activity. In particular, this is the Federal Law of September 26, 1997 No. 125-FZ “On freedom of conscience and religious associations”, Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of February 2, 1998 No. 130 “On the procedure for registration, opening and closing of representative offices of foreign religious organizations in the Russian Federation ", Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated June 3, 1998 No. 565 "On the procedure for conducting state religious studies examination" and some others.

Based on the generally accepted approach to determining the location of the crime in the Special Part of the Criminal Code (the generic object is the section of the Criminal Code, the direct object is the chapter of the Criminal Code), it seems most correct to single out a separate chapter of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, including Art. Art. 136, 148 and 239 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation of 1996. Within the framework of the issue of classification of religious crimes (crimes committed on religious grounds), such a generalizing feature as a single direct object is quite sufficient to identify a separate group of crimes.

The third group in the proposed classification of religious crimes unites acts committed for religious reasons. Religious motive is a motive of religious hatred or enmity, identified as a qualifying feature of a number of crimes. Following the logic of the legislator, this group of crimes includes:

• murder motivated by religious hatred or enmity (clause “l”, part 2 of article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation);

• intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm motivated by religious hatred or enmity (clause “e”, part 2, article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation);

• intentional infliction of moderate harm to health (clause “e”, part 2, article 112 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation);

• torture motivated by religious hatred or enmity (clause “h”, part 2, article 117 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation);

• desecration of the bodies of the dead and their burial places based on religious hatred or enmity (clause “b”, part 2 of article 244 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

The fourth group of religious crimes consists of crimes committed under the guise of following religious motives, and other crimes committed on religious grounds. The motive for identifying such a group of religious crimes was the use in the disposition of the criminal law norm of reference to the religious motivation for committing a crime. In view of this, in the group of crimes committed under the guise of following religious motives, and other crimes committed on religious grounds, we highlight:

• incitement of national, racial or religious hatred (Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation);

• genocide (Article 357 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Summarizing the above, we can conclude that modern Russian criminal legislation contains a group of socially dangerous, illegal, guilty, punishable acts directed against religion, religious principles, as well as those committed on religious grounds and for religious reasons. Thus, it would be entirely justified to distinguish the institution of religious crimes in Russian criminal law.

The constitutionally enshrined secular nature of the Russian state does not allow the criminalization of acts directly directed against God's commands and against the church as a public institution. In this regard, the institution of religious crimes includes acts that violate the legislation on religions, as well as ordinary crimes committed for religious reasons, under the guise of following religious rituals and other crimes committed on religious grounds.

“Potius sero, quam nunquam”: hate crimes and counteraction to them in Russia in 2021

Summary Systematic racist and neo-Nazi violence: Attacks on “ethnic outsiders”: Attacks on LGBT people: Attacks on ideological opponents: Other attacks.

Crimes against property Criminal prosecution for violence Criminal prosecution for crimes against property Brief statistics of crimes and punishments

This report [1] is about hate crimes, that is, ordinary criminal offenses, but committed on the basis of ethnic, religious and similar enmity or prejudice [2], and about counteraction to such crimes by the state.

Summary

Despite current global events - the coronavirus epidemic and the Black Lives Matter movement in America - which provoked an increase in xenophobic rhetoric on the Russian Internet, the number of xenophobically motivated attacks decreased over the past year, including a decrease in the number of murders. Contrary to fears, the war in Nagorno-Karabakh also did not cause an increase in Armenian-Azerbaijani conflicts in Russia, although we are aware of such clashes.

Typologically, the main group of victims in 2021 remained “ethnic outsiders,” although the number of victims among them turned out to be lower than a year earlier. But the number of victims among LGBT people and those who were mistaken for such has increased. The attacks on this group were partly provoked by the death of the popular neo-Nazi, founder of the Occupy Pedophilia movement, Maxim (Tesak) Martsinkevich, in whose memory “anti-pedophile raids” were held in at least two regions. The number of attacks on “ideological opponents” also increased over the year: the pro-Kremlin group SERB remained active, attacking opposition rallies; members of the group were especially visible in the summer at protests near the Belarusian Embassy.

There were more cases of damage to buildings, monuments, cemeteries, and various cultural sites motivated by religious, ethnic or ideological hatred in 2021 than in the previous year; this affected both religious objects and those that could be understood as ideological. It is gratifying that over the year the share of dangerous acts - explosions and arson - has decreased.

The number of convictions for hate crimes remained approximately the same as a year earlier, and the number of convictions even decreased slightly. However, new high-profile and large trials are ahead: the year ended with the arrest of a whole group of members of neo-Nazi gangs known in the past for murders committed in the 2000s, including one of the most popular leaders of the Moscow Nazi skinheads of the late 90s, Semyon Tokmakov (Busa).

Systematic racist and neo-Nazi violence

In 2021, at least 43 people suffered from ideologically motivated violence, one of whom died, and the rest were injured or beaten. In addition, 5 people received serious death threats. The overall number of hate-motivated attacks is decreasing, with 7 people killed and 64 injured or beaten in 2021[3]. True, our data, especially for the year just ended, is incomplete, the numbers will inevitably increase[4].

As usual, we do not write about victims in the republics of the North Caucasus and Crimea, where our method, alas, does not work. We cannot verify or clarify the data we collected with any other statistics on hate crimes in Russia, since no other statistics exist.

Our data, unfortunately, is only a weak reflection of what is actually happening and does not reflect the true extent of the violence. And this statement applied to the entire time of our monitoring. Over the past few years, online and offline media have reported virtually nothing about hate crimes, or have described them in such a way that it is impossible to understand the motive of the attackers. Victims turn to human rights organizations extremely rarely. But they turn to organizations involved in providing legal, medical, educational or financial assistance in isolated cases, and often it is not possible to extract enough data from these requests. Many victims also do not contact the police, since they do not really hope for help from police officers, but they are very afraid of potential problems from law enforcement officers. The attackers, who fearlessly posted videos of their “actions” a few years ago, have become more careful .

And if such videos appear, we have no way to verify their authenticity and find out the details of what happened.

As a result, we have no way of judging the true extent of violence, but since our methodology has remained unchanged since the beginning of the calculations, we can still analyze the dynamics.

Last year, we recorded attacks in 11 regions of the country (in 2021 - in 20 regions). In terms of level of violence, Moscow (12 beaten and wounded) and St. Petersburg (20 beaten and wounded) traditionally lead. And this is a rare case in our history of data collection when there were more victims in St. Petersburg than in Moscow. A noticeable number of victims, as a year earlier, turned out to be in the Sverdlovsk region (3 people).

Last year, attacks were recorded in new regions compared to the previous year: Arkhangelsk, Kaluga, Novosibirsk and Saratov regions. However, a number of regions disappeared from the statistics: no such crimes were recorded: in the Altai, Primorsky, Stavropol Territories, Vologda, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov Regions and the Republic of Yakutia.

According to our data, over the past 10 years, in addition to Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Moscow and Leningrad regions, crimes are recorded almost annually in such regions as Volgograd, Vologda, Voronezh, Kaluga, Kirov, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Rostov, Samara, Sverdlovsk, Rostov and Tula regions, Primorsky, Krasnodar and Khabarovsk territories. But it is possible that in these areas there is better information about such incidents.

Attacks on "ethnic outsiders"

The dominant group of victims remains people perceived by their attackers as “ethnic outsiders,” although their numbers were slightly lower than in the previous year. In 2021, we recorded 19 attacks based on ethnicity. In 2021, we wrote about 21.

Among the victims in this category are natives of Central Asia (4 beaten; in 2021 - 3 killed, 11 beaten), Caucasus (1 killed and 8 beaten; a year earlier, 1 beaten)[5]; people of unidentified “non-Slavic appearance” (2 beaten; in 2021 – 3 beaten). A brutal murder in Volgograd stands out from the crowd: on June 13, 2020, Timur Gavrilov, a 17-year-old medical university student from the Republic of Azerbaijan, died from 20 stab wounds. The murder suspect was a member of a certain ultra-right organization and attacked the student because that day he set out to “kill a non-Russian.”

In addition to those listed, a native of Buryatia was beaten at a train stop in Yekaterinburg. The attacker did not like his “narrow eyes.”

The echo of events in the United States related to the Black Lives Matter movement has reached Russia. Fortunately, there were few direct attacks on black people, although there were slightly more than the year before. We know of at least 2 attacks in 2021 (in 2017–2019 - 1 beating). For example, in St. Petersburg, in a subway train car, a group of aggressive young people sprayed gas from an “UDAR” aerosol pistol towards immigrants from Africa and began beating the Africans.

The level of intolerance towards black people in Russia is quite high, as is clearly evidenced by the fairly large-scale racist campaigns that regularly occur on the Internet. For example, on June 8 in Bryansk, a Yandex.Taxi driver refused to carry a black student named Roy Ibonga, and when asked if he was a racist, he answered in the affirmative. A video recording of the conversation was published in the “Overheard Bryansk” group on VKontakte and was widely distributed on social networks. After the scandal broke, she disconnected the driver from the service and publicly condemned his behavior. However, the story did not end there: Kirill Kaminetz, a blogger living in Germany, former author of Sputnik and Pogrom and founder of the Vendée project, launched the hashtag #YandexCuckold on Twitter and stated that Yandex.Taxi “infringes on the rights of Russians drivers and denies them the right to choose clients.” The hashtag was supported by many other users.

A black resident of St. Petersburg, Maria Magdalena Tunkara, regularly received racist threats on her blog; As evidence, she cited screenshots of comments in which she was called a “monkey,” wrote that “blacks have no place in Russia,” and were threatened. The girl was insulted not only in far-right public pages and the telegram channel of the founder of the “Male State” Vladislav Pozdnyakov, but also, for example, in general in the apolitical popular public page “Dvach”. On the eve of the festival “Without Borders Fest,” the National Conservative Movement (NKM) reported that Maria Tunkara “insulted nationalists” and plans to speak on June 20 at a festival organized by “leftists and feminists.” As a result, Tunkara was forced to withdraw from the event.

It's not just black people who face hate campaigns. In February 2021, the media reported that a resident of Kogalym, Tyumen region, Elena Melnik, who tried to publicly stand up for her Chechen husband, kidnapped in Grozny, received more than 100 xenophobic messages with threats and insults on the VKontakte social network in one night. She was “accused of the degeneration of the “Russian nation”, of betraying “Slavic blue-eyed blood” and “Russian traditions, for which our Orthodox grandfathers died for many centuries.” They called her a “stinking degenerate”, a “whore”, they wrote that they would gladly cut her throat, etc.[6]

According to a 2021 Levada Center survey[7], 44% of Russians surveyed were in favor of keeping Roma out of the country. And last year we encountered a case of anti-Gypsy protest. After a 16-year-old Roma driver hit a 15-year-old girl in one of the villages of the Stavropol Territory on August 13, local residents gathered at a public gathering, demanding that the Roma community be evicted from the village. The ultra-right immediately took advantage of the situation, trying to use the “Kondopoga technology” to inflate an interethnic conflict from an everyday conflict; this news was published on ultra-right resources on the Internet under the heading “I Hate Gypsies.”

In December, the 10th anniversary of the events on Manezhnaya Square in Moscow caused some excitement[8]. All events were held online: the participants spoke with their memories on Internet streams, and the evening in memory of the then deceased Spartak fan Yegor Sviridov[9] was held on the VKontakte social network. However, on December 6, on the eve of the anniversary, a video with a scene of an attack by a “group of Russian nationalists” on natives of Dagestan with the comment that it was made “in memory of Yegor” spread on the far-right Internet.

Fear of the coronavirus has provoked a rise in xenophobic anti-migrant sentiment in society. Numerous offensive and racist comments were posted on social media against Chinese and other Asians. Fortunately, it did not come to direct attacks, probably due to the active mobilization of the police, who strictly monitored compliance with the quarantine regime. However, the far right was very active on the Internet. Since the end of winter, anti-migrant materials have been distributed on nationalist websites, telling about robberies and murders, about “gangs of migrant workers” operating in various parts of Moscow, about “pregnant Tajiks” with infections in maternity hospitals. Petitions demanding a tightening of the migration regime began to appear on far-right resources. The National Democratic Party (NDP) published a petition “Let's protect the labor market and security for Russian citizens!” with proposals to deport migrants who have lost their jobs and introduce visas with Central Asian countries. The famous Orthodox nationalist Konstantin Malofeev also spoke out for the immediate deportation of all migrants left without work. And the Russian Corps organization in Volgograd promised to “move our squad onto the streets of our glorious city.”

Such vigilantes patrolling markets appeared in Yekaterinburg. At the largest Tagansky Ryad market in the Seven Keys microdistrict, where many immigrants from China live, patrols went out to “test for coronavirus” only visitors from Asian countries. Ataman of the non-profit partnership “Ural Cossacks” Gennady Kovalev claimed that similar patrols took to the streets of Ryazan and Tula[10].

The armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh caused interethnic clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Russia. Thus, on July 27, 2021, in St. Petersburg, several citizens of Azerbaijan attacked two citizens of Armenia, shouting anti-Armenian slogans and filming what was happening on video[11]. And on July 24, clashes between natives of Armenia and Azerbaijan occurred in Moscow[12].

Attacks on LGBT people

The number of attacks against LGBT people has increased again compared to a year earlier. recorded 16 beaten (a year earlier - 1 killed, 7 wounded and beaten). It seems to us that the increase in the number of attacks against LGBT people is not accidental. On the one hand, it is associated with the high level of everyday homophobia in Russian society, which is recorded in annual surveys. According to a 2021 Levada Center survey[13], 56% of respondents have a “rather negative” attitude towards LGBT people. Some of the negative emotions towards LGBT people were fueled by the authorities after the adoption of a law in 2013 prohibiting “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships” among minors. On the other hand, a homophobic context has always been inherent in neo-Nazi movements (both during the Third Reich and among Russian neo-Nazis since the early 2000s), whose ideology is based on biological postulates and arguments about blood and soil.

In 2021, homophobic attacks were provoked by the death of a famous neo-Nazi, leader of the far-right movement “Restrukt!” and the creator of the “Occupy-Pedophile” movement, Maxim (Tesak) Martsinkevich[14]. In October 2021, in Arkhangelsk, a group of young people held a “pedophile hunt” in memory of him: they contacted a man via the Internet on behalf of a minor teenager and agreed to meet to enter into an intimate relationship. They came to the “date” as a group and with a video camera, with which they interrogated the man, and then forced him to drink urine[15]. According to Vladislav Pozdnyakov (“Male State”), the attack on theater institute student Ilya Bondarenko near the Uzbechka restaurant in December 2021 in Saratov was also organized by local far-right members of Occupy Pedophilia, who “caught a pedophile”[16].

The statistics of such attacks are filled up not only by LGBT people, but also by those who were only considered as such. This happened, for example, in January 2020 in St. Petersburg with a man whose appearance was not liked by the attackers; or in Moscow with teenagers whose dyed hair aroused suspicion of their “non-traditional” sexual orientation.

Attacks on ideological opponents

In 2021, the number of far-right attacks on political, ideological or “stylistic” opponents turned out to be slightly higher than in 2021 - 5 beaten (in 2021 - 4 beaten)[17]. Among the victims are an anti-fascist and participants in the “SotsFem Alternatives” action.

The statistics of victims in this group are also supplemented by those who were considered a “fifth column” and “traitors to the motherland” - mainly participants in protests who suffered from the actions of the pro-Kremlin nationalist organization of the group SERB (South East Radical Block) Igor Beketov (Goshi Tarasevich)[18 ].

SERB members were also active at the Belarusian Embassy in Moscow. Together with activists of the National Liberation Movement (NLM), they engaged in minor provocations, hooliganism and attacks on people gathering at protests near the Belarusian Embassy.

The topic of threats from the far right was also on the agenda in 2021: personal data of an expert who gave opinions on cases of extremism was disseminated on Telegram channels, and the names of judges and participants in trials in such cases were published.

Other attacks

In 2021, we know of only one case of attack on a homeless person (a year earlier we wrote about 1 killed and 6 beaten).

However, statistics for this group are particularly unstable. The media quite often comes across reports of beatings and corpses of homeless people being found, but it is impossible to understand any details from the descriptions.

The topic of hazing in the army with xenophobic overtones is also closed, and we do not have any detailed information about such cases. The military themselves actively deny such incidents. Indirect evidence of such cases may be a video message about discrimination based on ethnicity in the army, which on January 10, 2021, a Tuvan conscript soldier posted on Instagram. Private Shoigu Kuular stated that he and other conscripts from Tyva were being humiliated by the commanders of the unit in Rostov the Great[19]. It is typical that many readers complained about xenophobic threats and attacks in the comments to the post.

Property crimes

Crimes against property include damage to cemeteries, monuments, various cultural sites and various property in general. The Criminal Code classifies these cases under various articles, but law enforcement in this sense is not always consistent. Such actions are usually called vandalism; we also called them by the same term, but several years ago we decided to abandon this practice, since the concept of “vandalism” not only in the Criminal Code, but also in everyday language clearly does not describe all possible attacks on property.

In 2021, the number of crimes against property motivated by religious, ethnic or ideological hatred turned out to be higher than a year earlier: in 2021 we know of 29 cases in 21 regions of the country (in 2021 - at least 20 in 17 regions of the country). We do not include in the statistics isolated cases of detection of neo-Nazi graffiti and drawings on houses and fences, but we do include series of graffiti (law enforcement understands graffiti either as a form of vandalism or as a method of public expression).

In 2021, 6 ideological objects and one state one were damaged, which is slightly more than a year earlier (5 ideological objects in 2021). Among these objects are monuments to military glory, monuments to Lenin, and a monument to the victims of the Gulag.

Separately, it is worth noting the desecration of images and monuments of “ethnic enemies”: in 2021, in Chelyabinsk, attackers wrote “Not our hero” in black paint on the image of the Dagestani athlete Khabib Nurmagomedov, in Astrakhan they poured paint and drew a swastika on the bust of the ethnographer and Nogai educator Abdul-Nurmagomedov. Hamid Dzhanibekov and in Astrakhan they painted the monument blue and painted a white swastika on the monument to the Tatar poet Gabdulla Tukai.

Traditionally, most of the desecrations are of religious sites. Among them, as a year earlier, the majority were Orthodox churches and crosses - 8 episodes (in 2021 - 16 episodes). Second place goes to Jewish objects - 3 episodes (a year earlier - 5) and pagan objects - 3 episodes (none a year earlier). Muslim and Protestant objects have 2 episodes each (in 2021, Muslim - 1, Protestant - 0), Buddhist - 1 (in 2021 - 0).

Overall, the number of attacks on religious sites has increased slightly: 19 in 2021 (we wrote about 15 in 2021, but 20 in 2018). The share of the most dangerous acts - arson and explosions - decreased slightly compared to last year and amounted to 24%, that is, 7 out of 29 (a year earlier - 6 out of 20).

The regional distribution has changed noticeably over the year. In 2020, we noted such crimes in 13 new regions: Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Voronezh, Kaluga, Murmansk, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan and Chelyabinsk regions, the Republics of Altai, Bashkortostan, Komi and Khakassia, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug; previously, 9 regions appeared, but are now not included in our statistics: Vladimir, Volgograd, Irkutsk, Kaliningrad, Novosibirsk and Tver regions, the city of Sevastopol, Altai and Stavropol territories.

For the second year, the geography of the activities of xenophobic vandals (21 regions) turned out to be wider than the geography of acts of violence (11 regions). Both were recorded in 5 regions (a year and two years earlier - also in 5): Moscow, St. Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, Voronezh and Kaluga regions (the last three regions do not coincide with the data for 2021 and 2021).

Criminal prosecution for violence

In 2021, the number of people convicted of violent hate crimes was almost the same as the year before. In 2021, at least 5 convictions were handed down in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Novosibirsk region and the Stavropol Territory, in which the courts recognized the motive of hatred[20]. In these trials, 8 people were found guilty (in 2021 - 9 people).

To qualify racist violence, the following articles containing the motive of hatred as a qualifying feature were used: “Murder” (clause “l”, part 2 of article 105 of the Criminal Code), “Hooliganism” (clause “b, c”, part 1 of article 213 Criminal Code), “Beatings” (Article 116 of the Criminal Code) - and this is a standard set of articles for the last five years. Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (“Incitement to hatred”) in relation to violent crimes appeared in one conviction (a year earlier - in 3). In the city of Nevinnomyssk, Stavropol Territory, in June 2021, a 25-year-old local resident punched an unknown 37-year-old woman in the face, while shouting xenophobic insults and calls for violence “against representatives of her ethnic group.” The next day, the suspect attacked a 30-year-old man in a similar manner. He was convicted under paragraph “a” of Part 2 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (“Inciting hatred with the use of violence”). It seems to us that in this case it would be more appropriate to apply another article of the charge with a qualifying feature, for example, Art. 116, 115 or 112 of the Criminal Code - depending on the severity of the damage caused). However, such an application of Art. 282 is also allowed: in the resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. 11 “On judicial practice in criminal cases of extremist crimes” dated June 28, 2011[21] it is specified that Art. 282 of the Criminal Code can be applied to violent crimes if they are aimed at inciting hatred among third parties, for example, in the case of a public and demonstrative ideologically motivated attack.

Punishments for violent acts were distributed as follows:

• 2 people were sentenced to 6 years in prison;
• 1 person – to 4 years in prison;
• 1 person – to suspended imprisonment;
• 4 people - fines.

We have doubts about the suspended sentence that a resident of Novosibirsk received for attacking a native of Buryatia on a train. Probably, the leniency of the sentence is explained by the fact that the attacker admitted guilt and repented, and the Buryats were not seriously injured; the passengers of the train stood up for him, interrupted the attack and handed the attacker over to the police. However, a suspended sentence for an ideologically motivated attack does not seem to us to be an adequate punishment; such sentences often give rise to a feeling of impunity among aggressive young people and rarely stop them from committing similar acts in the future.

The fines awarded to four far-right activists in St. Petersburg for attacking a man they mistook for an anti-fascist can probably also be explained by the active repentance of the attackers and their minority. Although for “spraying gas in the face from a can,” threatening with knives and “shooting in the face with an aerosol pistol,” the punishment could have been more severe than fines of 10 to 40 thousand rubles. Moreover, earlier Dmitry Nedugov, a member of the well-known neo-Nazi group NS/WP, was a suspect in this case, but as a result he was not charged in this case.

The rest of those convicted in 2021 were sentenced to terms of imprisonment from 4 to 6 years, which seems to us a completely proportionate punishment for the attacks.

Separately, it is worth mentioning some sentences that, as it seems to us, were handed down for xenophobic violence, although the motive of hatred was not included in the charges or we are not aware of it. It is characteristic that all the attackers received suspended sentences or were sentenced to restriction of freedom.

On August 7, two people were sentenced to suspended sentences under Part 2 of Art. 213 of the Criminal Code for attacks on Nigerian citizens in the subway. In August, under the same article, Artyom Vlasov was sentenced to a year of suspended imprisonment for participating in an attack on an anti-fascist concert at the Tsokol club on September 2, 2021. On February 6, 2021, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow sentenced him to 1 year and 11 months restrictions on the freedom of Anton Berezhny for an attack on a gay couple in June 2021. Berezhnoy attacked the young people with a knife, shouting homophobic slurs. One of the victims, Roman Edalov, died on the spot, the second, Evgeniy Efimov, received a minor injury that was not life-threatening. Berezhny was accused of murder (Part 1 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code) and battery (Article 116 of the Criminal Code), but the jury found him guilty of attacking Efimov and acquitted him of the murder of Edalov. Why exactly this happened is unclear to us. It is only known that at the trial Berezhnoy himself admitted guilt in the attack, but denied guilt in the murder, saying that Edalov himself “fell on the knife” [22].

Towards the end of the year, news suddenly emerged about investigations into murders committed between 2003 and 2007.

In October 2021, investigative authorities reported that the first suspects had emerged in the case of the brutal double murder of a native of Dagestan, Shamil Odamanov (Udamanov), and a native of Central Asia. A video where, against the backdrop of a flag with a swastika, the ultra-right cut off Odamanov’s head, and shot the second victim at point-blank range, appeared on the Internet in the summer of 2007[23]. The video was initially declared falsified, but the father of the deceased Odamanov identified his son in the video[24]. The video was widely circulated on the Internet; every year the prosecutor's office reported punishments for ordinary social network users who reposted this video, but nothing was heard about the investigation into the murder. And only in October 2021 - 13 years later! – a message appeared that neo-Nazi Sergei Marshakov, who is serving a sentence for shooting at FSB officers, and ex-member of Format-18 Maxim Aristarkhov, also serving a sentence, were accused in this case. It is reported that before his death, Maxim (Tesak) Martsinkevich confessed to this murder and his involvement, together with members of nationalist organizations, in other murders of people of “non-Slavic appearance” in 2002–2006[25].

At the end of December, other members of Nazi gangs known in the past were detained in Moscow, Sochi and Tyumen: Semyon (Bus) Tokmakov, one of the most famous leaders of the Moscow Nazi skinheads of the late 90s, then the leader of the “Russian Target” skin brigade, and then the youth organization of the People's National Party (PNP), Andrei Keil, Bus's successor in the PNP, Alexander Lysenkov, also a member of the PNP, Maxim Khotulev, Pavel Khrulev (Myshkin) and Alexey Gudilin. They are accused of involvement in a series of “ especially serious crimes, including the murders of people from the Central Asian region

", committed in the early 2000s. The Investigative Committee reports that the crimes were revealed as part of the investigation into the same double murder[26].

Criminal prosecution for crimes against property

In 2021, we know of only one conviction for a property crime in which a hate motive was imputed. (In 2019, we are not aware of such verdicts; in 2021, we wrote about 2 verdicts against 6 people in 2 regions.)

In Volgograd, the court sentenced a local resident under Part 2 of Art. 214 of the Criminal Code (“Vandalism motivated by national hatred”) and Art. 280 (“Public calls for extremist activities”) to 1.5 years of suspended imprisonment, with a 2-year deprivation of the right to engage in activities related to the administration of websites on the Internet. And this punishment seems to us quite fair for the painted several swastikas, a diagram of a target and an anti-Semitic offensive inscription left in the summer of 2021 on the monument of the memorial complex “The front line of the defense of Stalingrad in November 1942, troops of the 62nd and 64th armies.” Although a sentence of compulsory labor would be even more adequate, providing for the performance of free socially useful work in free time from main activities.

And this is precisely the punishment that another anti-Semitic graffiti artist suffered in the Vologda region. On February 10, 2021, the magistrate court of judicial district No. 42 of the Oktyabrsky judicial district sentenced Vyacheslav Kotenko to 280 hours of compulsory labor for painting a yellow cross on the monument to Holocaust victims in the village of Aksai, erected in 2018 with the assistance of the Russian Jewish Congress as part of the “Restore Dignity” project [27]. In this case, the sentence was passed under Part 1 of Art. 214 of the Criminal Code, and the motive of hatred was not included in the charge.

[1] Our work on this topic was supported in 2021 by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, the International Partnership for Human Rights and the European Commission.

On December 30, 2021, ROO was forcibly included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of “non-profit organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent.” We do not agree with this decision and will appeal it. The author of the report is a member of the board.

[2] Hate Crime Law: A Practical Guide. Warsaw: OSCE/ODIHR, 2009 (available on the OSCE website in several languages, including Russian: https://www.osce.org/odihr/36426).

Verkhovsky Alexander. Criminal law of the OSCE countries against hate crimes, incitement to hatred and hate speech (2nd edition, corrected and expanded). M., 2015 (available on the website: https://www.sova-center.ru/files/books/cl15-text.pdf).

[3] Data for 2021 and 2021 are as of January 20, 2021.

[4] In a similar report for 2021, we wrote about 5 dead, 45 wounded and beaten. See: Yudina N. Criminal activity of the ultra-right. Hate crimes and counteraction to them in Russia in 2021 // . 2021. February 4 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2020/02/d42015/).

[5] Interestingly, there were more injured natives of the Caucasus than natives of Central Asia; usually the situation is the opposite.

[6] A resident of Kogalym is threatened by social network users because she is married to a Chechen // . 2021. February 7 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/racism-nationalism/2020/02/d42056/).

[7] Xenophobia and nationalism // Levada-Center. 2021. September 23. (https://www.levada.ru/2020/09/23/ksenofobiya-i-natsionalizm-2/).

[8] Riots on Manezhnaya Square in Moscow // . 2010. December 12 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/racism-nationalism/2010/12/d20481/).

[9] Kozhevnikova Galina. Iz ze yunik moment // . 2010. December 8 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2010/12/d20452/).

[10] In Yekaterinburg, Cossacks are conducting raids to search for people of Asian appearance with cold symptoms // . 2021. February 21 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/racism-nationalism/2020/02/d42118/).

[11] In St. Petersburg, an Azerbaijani was detained in a criminal case of extremism for an attack on Armenians // Mediazona. 2021. August 6 (https://zona.media/news/2020/08/06/spb).

[12] Human rights activists warned about the risk of escalation of the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict in Moscow // Caucasian Knot. 2020. July 30 (https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/352464).

[13] Attitude towards LTBT people // Levada Center. 2021. May 23 (https://www.levada.ru/2019/05/23/otnoshenie-k-lgbt-lyudyam/).

[14] Nationalist Maxim Martsinkevich died in a pre-trial detention center // . 2021. September 16 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/2020/09/d42916/).

[15] Arkhangelsk: Martsinkevich’s fans conducted a raid in memory of him // . 2021. October 5 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/racism-nationalism/2020/10/d43004/).

[16] Attack in Saratov // . 2021. January 11 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/racism-nationalism/2021/01/d43477/).

[17] The peak of such attacks occurred in 2007 (7 killed, 118 injured); since then there has been a constant decline. After 2013, the dynamics are unstable.

[18] For more information about them, see: Alperovich Vera, Yudina N. Pro-Kremlin and opposition with a shield or on a shield // . 2015. July 27 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2015/07/d32502/).

[19] “His last name is not Shoigu”: details of the scandal with a conscript soldier who claimed discrimination in the army // 76.ru. 2021. January 13 (https://76.ru/text/incidents/2021/01/13/69694056/).

[20] We are talking only about those sentences where the motive of hatred is recognized and which we consider legitimate.

[21] For more details, see: Alperovich V., Verkhovsky A., Yudina N. Between Manezhnaya and Bolotnaya: Xenophobia and radical nationalism and counteraction to them in 2011 in Russia // . 2012. February 21 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2012/02/d23739/).

[22] “Fell on a knife.” A person involved in the murder of a gay man has been acquitted in Moscow // . 2021. February 7 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2020/02/d42057/).

[23] In Adygea, charges were brought under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code to a student who posted a Nazi video on the Internet // . 2007. October 19 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/against-cyberhate/2007/10/d11796/).

[24] Relatives of a missing native of Dagestan recognized him from a Nazi video posted on the Internet // . 2008. June 4 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2008/06/d13503/).

[25] Suspects have appeared in the case of a double neo-Nazi murder committed in the 2000s // . 2021. October 21 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2020/10/d43089/).

[26] Six suspects in a series of nationalist murders were arrested // . 2021. December 24 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2020/12/d43436/).

[27] The man who desecrated the monument to Holocaust victims in the Volgograd region was sentenced // . 2021. February 12 (https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2020/02/d42077/)

Sources:

spoke about the increase in the number of attacks on LGBT people after the death of the neo-Nazi Tesak // TK Dozhd. 2021. February 3.

“Sova”: the number of attacks on LGBT people has increased again in Russia // Radio Liberty. 2021. February 3.

Everything you need to know early in the morning of February 4 // Present tense. 2021. February 4.

In Russia, the number of crimes against LGBT people has doubled. Four reasons // 66.ru. 2021. February 11.

Show articles

Links to this article
[4]:
​​loading …

Jerking in court Prosecution witnesses called Pussy Riot's performance demonic dancing

On July 30, the Khamovnichesky District Court of Moscow began considering the case of three Pussy Riot members. The first meeting lasted 12 hours, although judge Marina Syrova was ready to work at night. During this time, the court managed to hear the testimony of three victims - a candle maker, an altar boy and a random parishioner of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. They called the girls’ performance in the temple “demonic jumping and jerking.” The members of Pussy Riot, in turn, said that they did not want to offend the Orthodox, but were only trying to draw attention to politics, namely the issue of the patriarch’s support for Vladimir Putin.

In the dock in the Pussy Riot case are Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Ekaterina Samutsevich. In February 2012, the girls performed an excerpt from the song “Mother of God, drive Putin away” in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, and in March they were arrested. They are accused under the second part of Article 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Hooliganism”. The investigation considers their performance in the temple to be hooliganism. Moreover, according to investigators, the activists committed hooliganism based on religious hatred.

The indictment clarifies that by penetrating into a part of the church inaccessible to ordinary parishioners, they did nothing less than “humiliate the centuries-old foundations and fundamental guidelines of the Russian Orthodox Church.” “For about 1 minute, based on religious hatred and enmity, they shouted, chanted obscene phrases and words insulting believers, and also jumped, raised their legs, imitated dancing and punching imaginary opponents,” says the text of the document approved by the prosecutor’s office.

Ekaterina Samutsevich. Photo by Reuters

Lenta.ru

You can see what happened in the temple, for example, here. You just need to keep in mind that the video was edited: one part was filmed in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior (the girls are judged for this performance), and the other in Yelokhovsky Cathedral. Where the activists are without guitars, these are shots from the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, where with guitars and microphones, these are from Yelokhovsky. The indictment, however, says that Ekaterina Samutsevich uncovered the guitar in the church on Volkhonka.

At a meeting on July 30, Judge Marina Syrova determined the order of consideration of the case. First, victims and prosecution witnesses will be heard, then the prosecution will present written evidence, after which defense evidence will be presented and defense witnesses will be heard. The judge left the interrogation of the accused for later.

The first meeting, however, began with the prosecutor asking to prohibit the broadcast of speeches by the victims (there are nine of them in total in the case). He argued the need for a ban due to the “split in society” over the Pussy Riot case. According to him, broadcasting the testimony of victims may threaten the safety of participants in the process. In this regard, he mentioned the attack on Judge Ivanova from the Tagansky District Court, who extended the arrest of the group members. A man burst into her office and threatened her with an ax.

As a result, Judge Syrova granted the petition and banned the broadcast. All other events during the trial are broadcast on the Internet. The only condition was that the judge forbade showing herself and the prosecutor.

In turn, the accused side submitted their petitions. Maria Alyokhina asked to send the case for further investigation, since it was missing a number of documents. She and Ekaterina Samutsevich asked for a confidential meeting with the lawyers (they were not able to meet on Friday, since the defenders were allowed into the pre-trial detention center too late). All the girls also demanded the right to familiarize themselves with physical evidence - records found on seized computers. The court rejected all their requests.

Before denying the petitions, the judge heard the girls' written opinions on the charges brought against them. The text was read by lawyer Violetta Volkova, who represents the interests of Ekaterina Samutsevich. In her explanation, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova admitted that the performance in the temple was an “ethical mistake.” “Our ethical, I emphasize, ethical, and not provided for by the Criminal Code, guilt lies in the fact that we allowed ourselves to react to the patriarch’s call, which upset us, to vote for the politician Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin,” she explained. According to the activist, the performance “was not motivated by religious hostility and hatred, just as we do not and did not have hatred towards the social group of Orthodox believers.” “Our non-admission of guilt does not mean that we are not ready to apologize, we admit that we made an ethical mistake by allowing ourselves to transfer our art to the temple,” she emphasized.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. Photo by Reuters

Lenta.ru

Tolokonnikova was supported in her message by Maria Alekhina. “I am Orthodox, but I hold different political views, and my question is what should I do... I thought that the church loves its children, but it turns out that there is a division here too, and the church loves only those children who believe in Putin,” she said.

“The indictment says that I committed hooliganism motivated by religious hatred and hostility and hatred towards Orthodox believers. I fundamentally do not understand this statement,” the Pussy Riot member emphasized. Ekaterina Samutsevich, in turn, stated that all three defendants in the case are being prosecuted for political reasons.

In response to the reading of the letters, the victims’ lawyer Larisa Pavlova asked not to turn the process into a “farce.” “Being involved in a farce and putting on such shows is not good for the defendants,” she said. The prosecutor noted that Pussy Riot's defenders are simply trying to impress journalists.

The judge, meanwhile, tried to find out whether the charges against the defendants were clear. Tolokonnikova and Samutsevich answered in the affirmative, but Alyokhina, on the contrary, stated that she could not understand what exactly she was accused of, since the indictment did not explain why her actions were carried out based on religious hatred. In the video, the girl is sincerely surprised by the accusation. The judge asked the prosecutor to clarify the charges, but in response he only read the document two more times.

After this, the interrogation of prosecution witnesses began. Candle-maker Lyubov Sokologorskaya was the first to rise to the podium. According to her, she first saw the Pussy Riot members when they asked her where to put which candles. As the candle maker said, while she was explaining, some movement was heard behind her. Turning around, Sokologorskaya saw how the girls climbed onto the pulpit and began to take off their clothes. Having undressed, as the candle maker said, the activists began to perform “demonic jerks.”

Maria Alyokhina. Photo by Reuters

Lenta.ru

Lawyer Nikolai Polozov, representing the interests of Maria Alekhina, asked the witness what regulated permissible body movements in the temple. To this the candle maker replied that only bows can be made in the temple.

“This is blasphemy, sacrilege, desecration of my feelings, my faith, my ideals, desecration of me as a person, my choice on the path of life! - Sokologorskaya said in court. - From my point of view, this is a crime. The punishment must be adequate - that is, such that you will never want to, so that you will simply be afraid to repeat it!”

Lawyers asked whether the candle maker turned to psychologists about the injuries caused to her by the girls’ performance. “I am an Orthodox believer. The gracious energy of the Holy Spirit is a million times stronger than a psychologist!” - Sokologorskaya noted in response. However, the next question from the defense, why this energy did not heal her, was removed by the judge. In general, the judge dismissed almost all the defense’s questions. In the case, all that was obtained from Sokologorskaya was that, in her opinion, the word “feminist” uttered in the church becomes a dirty word. “Virgin Mother of God, become a feminist,” these are the words in the Pussy Riot song.

The next person questioned was a random parishioner, People's Council activist Denis Istomin. However, according to the defense, he is not so random, since he has already acted as a victim in the case of the “Beware of Religion” exhibition. On the podium, Istomin was confused in his testimony. At first he stated that he came to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior for the first time, but then he said that he tried to go there as often as possible. According to him, he only wants to achieve repentance from the Pussy Riot members.

- Did you hear me apologize? - Alekhina asked him. - As Stanislavsky said, I don’t believe it! -What does it take for you to believe? - Well I do not know…

After interrogating Istomin, the defense challenged the judge because she refused to reschedule the hearing until tomorrow, and by that time it had already lasted about 10 hours. The accused girls said that it would be difficult for them to prepare for the trial, since they had to get up at five in the morning, and they would be brought to the pre-trial detention center around two in the morning. To this, the judge noted that she was ready to work even until the morning, and refused to recuse herself.

The third victim, altar boy Mikhail Tsyganyuk, rose to the podium. He managed to tell the court that the girls’ performance in his eyes was “mockery, desecration of a shrine and mockery.” Following the candlestick, he called the movements that the girls made “demonic leaps.”

At this point the meeting ended. The continuation of Tsyganyuk’s questioning was postponed until the morning. On July 31, the case continues in the Khamovnichesky Court.