First of all, it should be noted that the concept of “threatening with violence” is when we are talking specifically about physical violence, a threat to health or life.
If an attacker threatens to set fire to a house, tear up important documents, or cause damage to any other property, this act will not be regarded as violence. Art. protects citizens from attacks on health and life, even in verbal form. 119 of the Criminal Code (CC) of the Russian Federation.
But, unfortunately, in order to bring the threat to justice, the victim will have to prove that she had reason to fear that the threats would actually be carried out.
It is important to remember that violence cannot be fought alone. Often, people who are threatened with violence are in a position of dependence on the attacker. They simply do not have the opportunity to confront the criminal, fearing worsening negative consequences. There is no need to be afraid to seek help from lawyers who will do everything to stop the moral suffering of their clients.
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What to do if there is a threat?
The first recommendation is to never give in to panic, no matter who threatens you. This could be a stranger, as well as a friend, close relative and husband. In any case, your actions must be thoughtful and rational. Secondly, you must not succumb to aggression and return evil for evil. In the future, this may affect the court’s decision, and in some situations make you the culprit. Remember a number of other recommendations:
- If a stranger threatens you, try to remember his signs as much as possible: face, clothes, height, hair color, approximate age.
- If possible, record what is happening using recording devices. A video or audio recording will become your most important and irrefutable evidence.
- If you have been physically harmed, seek emergency medical help immediately, even if the injury is not very serious. It is important to remove them and record them, since law enforcement agencies are unlikely to pursue the case without evidence.
- It’s great if you manage to find witnesses to the crime. Perhaps someone did not see, but heard the threats: his support could play a decisive role in the matter.
Thus, the most important task of the victim becomes collecting any evidence of what happened.
Without evidence, there is no point in contacting law enforcement agencies, and with them in hand, you can safely initiate a criminal case. Interesting to know! Ways to receive compensation for moral damage: .
Procedure
What to do if you are threatened on the Internet: on VK and other sites? If you receive a threat to life or health, you must immediately contact the police with a corresponding statement. Often the police do not show much activity in bringing the culprit to justice and limit themselves to explanatory conversations with him.
Important. Within the framework of the law, the victim can try to achieve justice by all legal means, in particular if the offender was not punished under Art. 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, then you can try to recover compensation from him in court for moral damage caused (Article 151 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation or 128.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Algorithm
You need to file a complaint at the police station at your place of registration. There is no uniform standard for the application, but there are some requirements for its content. An approximate sample application can be obtained from the local police officer or downloaded from our website.
The application must state the situation as fully as possible, attaching supporting documents (screenshot of a message with a threat, etc.)
- After registering the application with the police, a pre-investigation check will begin, following which a decision will be made to initiate a criminal case or to refuse. The applicant has the right to familiarize himself with the decision and inspection materials.
- If a refusal is received, the victim can appeal the refusal decision by writing a corresponding statement addressed to the head of the investigative body, to the prosecutor's office, or by sending a statement of claim to the court. In this case, it is necessary to provide convincing evidence that the victim assesses the likelihood of unlawful actions being committed against him as very high.
Legal settlement
If the initiation of a criminal case was refused, but fears for life and health remain, the citizen has the right to send a statement of claim to the district court in accordance with the procedure provided for in Chapter 16 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation.
The statement of claim must contain:
- the name of the judicial authority where the plaintiff submits the application;
- Full name of the plaintiff and address of his place of residence;
- Full name of the defendant;
- the essence of the appeal is the presence of a threat to life and health;
- a detailed statement of the circumstances under which the threat was received;
- providing evidence confirming the fact of an unlawful act.
If necessary, you can contact specialized legal organizations that will help you competently draw up a statement of claim.
In order to convince the court, you need to provide significant evidence that there is a high probability of committing an illegal act. It is advisable to collect additional arguments to substantiate your concerns:
- testimony of witnesses who can confirm the opponent’s hostile attitude;
- certified screenshots on social networks and/or audio/video/photos and other materials containing the fact of a threat: recordings of telephone calls, SMS messages, letters (including emails), etc.
The state fee for filing a claim will be 300 rubles.
Statement of threat
The beginning of contact with law enforcement agencies begins with a correctly drawn up statement against the accused. In order to do this, you can contact a lawyer or try to draw up the document yourself. This is done according to the following algorithm:
- The header indicates the name of the authority you are applying to. If the appeal is to a specific person, indicate him. The header also contains full information about the applicant - full name, place of registration and residence, passport details, etc.
- After this, the text of the statement describes the circumstances of the incident, indicating the date and time of the incident (if possible).
- If there were witnesses, then it is written about this, indicating the names and telephone numbers of people who are ready to confirm your words.
- After this, you need to write that the threat had a real basis for such and such reasons. Here we indicate all the evidence that you have - you will need to attach it, for example, on a disk, flash card or other media. If this is a photo, you can print it out and attach it to your application.
- The statement ends with a request to punish the criminal.
- At the end there is a number of compilation and a signature.
Remember that you are responsible for providing false testimony in accordance with Articles 306 and 307 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Therefore, if your evidence is not accepted, you may have to face the charges. It is also best to indicate that you have been warned about this in the last part of the statement.
Sample statement to the police
Peculiarities
From the point of view of the law, any threat is a crime, and there is a penalty for it. However, since on the Internet it is, in principle, quite easy to encounter manifestations of rudeness and hatred, including from anonymous ill-wishers, the main problems in bringing an aggressor to justice may be confirming the validity of the threats emanating from the criminal, as well as identifying his identity.
It must be proven that the aggressor, intimidating the victim and demonstrating his intentions to harm her life and health, did everything possible to ensure that his actions were perceived as a real danger. We talked more about what intimidation is and what punishment is provided for it in this material.
To confirm illegal actions, it is necessary to take a screenshot of the attacker’s post on a social network, since he can subsequently delete it. It is strongly recommended that the screenshot containing the threat be certified by a notary office. The notary must draw up an “Act of Inspection of a Page on the Internet.”
In addition, if, in addition to online intimidation, the victim receives face-to-face threats either directly from the attacker, or by telephone, or in the form of a letter, it is also advisable to record them: find witnesses and record the telephone conversation (details on what to do if threats are received by telephone read here).
Punishment for threat
After the court manages to establish the crime and determine the guilt of the defendant, it will determine a specific punishment.
In accordance with parts of Article 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, it can be as follows: 1. According to part 1 of Article 119, punishment can be presented in the form of:
- compulsory work for a period of up to 480 hours;
- forced labor for up to 2 years;
- restrictions of freedom up to 2 years;
- imprisonment for up to 2 years;
- arrest for a period of no more than six months.
2. According to part 2 of Article 119, punishment may include:
- forced labor for up to 5 years;
- imprisonment for periods of not more than 5 years.
Additional punishment will be:
- prohibition from holding certain positions for a fixed period (usually 5 years);
- deprivation of the right to engage in certain types of activities for a period of no more than 5 years.
Thus, on average, the punishment for threats of physical violence is serious - about 2 years. If there are aggravating circumstances, the punishment will be increased to 5 years in prison. These may include bodily injury, harm to health, violent acts, etc.
Composition of the crime of threats via the Internet
A criminal threat is the intent of one person to cause serious harm to the health of another person or even take his life. This intention can be expressed verbally or in writing, supported by specific actions, gestures, and demonstration of objects that could potentially cause damage to health.
It doesn't matter whether the attacker actually intended to carry out his plans or not. The fundamental point is that the potential victim perceives the aggressor’s intentions as a real danger. Constantly being in anticipation of physical violence can cause an actual deterioration in the physical and psychological well-being of an individual.
When assessing the offender's statements, the relationship between the parties to the conflict, the circumstances in which the threat was made, the content of the threat and the frequency of its expression are taken into account.
What to do if you are insulted on the Internet
If this happened in an official community on social networks, then you should know that they are usually moderated for unconstructive discussions, so just wait.
If you find yourself in a “wild place,” you always have the opportunity to complain about a comment, indicating the reason as “Insult.” After a complaint, such a comment will be hidden or deleted. For information
Comments on websites are often less well moderated than on social media, but there is also a “Report” option.
If you are insulted in private messages or messenger, you can always block the sender or restrict access to your page. Please note that insults in instant messengers may subsequently be deleted by the sender without the possibility of further confirming the fact that they were there, if necessary.
How to prove?
A death threat can be considered proven if you have the necessary evidence . What can be considered evidence?
Evidence can be considered testimony of witnesses, a recording of a conversation, an SMS message with a threat, or a threat from a user on the Internet. If you can provide such evidence, the fact is considered proven.
also be considered evidence , because handwriting can easily be recognized through examination. The evidence is all around us, you just have to reach out and try to find it.
No restrictions
If we exaggerate the question to the utmost, we can say that a statement about a threat to life and health can be written even when a neighbor’s child shoots passers-by with a toy pistol.
That is, the applicant is not at all obliged to assess the reality and feasibility of the threat. This is the task of law enforcement agencies.
As for the applicant, he has every right to be subjective, that is, to evaluate the situation through the prism of his own feelings and his own worldview.
This does not mean that any allegation of a threat to life will ultimately turn into a criminal case. Moreover, we declare with full responsibility that, most likely, a criminal case will not even be initiated.
The fact is that a threat to life and health is one of the most difficult actions to prove. Unfortunately, people use the word “kill” very often, while in order to initiate a criminal case for a threat to kill, it is not words that are needed, but a real threat.
Qualification (signs)
The qualifying signs of such an act are reflected in Part 2 of Art. 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation . There are not many of them, but each of them is significant in its own way.
The first sign is the commission of a crime motivated by some kind of hatred . This could be hatred towards representatives of different concessions, ideology, race, and so on. The Russian Federation does not allow such stratification of society, therefore this situation is included as a separate feature. You cannot threaten a person just because his worldview is different from yours.
The same applies to the second group of qualifying characteristics, characteristic of social groups . In addition to social groups, a sign also includes classes . The state does not allow such an attitude, therefore all of the listed signs are aggravating.
Forms and objective signs of death threats:
- verbal. A verbal form can only be considered a threat if this very threat was clearly formulated and voiced in it. The verbal form can be heard over the phone, through a video message and in other possible ways. If the victim accepted such a threat as real, then the case is criminally punishable.
- with a knife. Threatening with a knife is primarily a demonstration of weapons. The victim, seeing the object with which they want to injure him, perceives the received threat more realistically. If the criminal does not even use a knife, but a similar object, but the victim regarded it as a bladed weapon - therefore the punishment remains the same.
- by phone. A telephone threat is a form of verbal threat. Sometimes the victim does not recognize the voice of the criminal, sometimes he does. A telephone threat is regarded as valuable evidence, because in some cases the conversation can be recorded and used as evidence in court.
- sms. An SMS threat is a written threat. It is easy to determine the author of such a message, even if you do not have such a number in your notebook. A threat via SMS is important evidence of the criminal’s guilt. Such a threat, unlike a verbal one, remains on an electronic medium and can always be presented to the detainee.
- via the Internet. A threat received on the Internet is also written. Modern technologies can help identify the author of such a message with great ease, however, not all law enforcement agencies are ready to take on such a case. The threat on the Internet must be recorded somewhere and presented as evidence.
