On Tuesday, July 12, a regular court hearing will be held in the case of Yulia Tsvetkova, who is accused of distributing pornography, she faces 3 years in prison. The “pornography” in question is educational drawings of the female body published in public on VKontakte. Tsvetkova is not the only one who was convicted under a porn article. In recent years, Art. 242 and its paragraphs became a convenient tool of repression, thanks to which more than 200 people were convicted, including for pedophilia. How Tsvetkova and other activists objectionable to the authorities were persecuted – in the review of The Insider.
Julia Tsvetkova
The criminal prosecution against Tsvetkova began in October 2019. It was preceded by a year of activism and related conflicts with the police. They threatened to take away the premises of her Balagan theater for the “LGBT festival”, and they talked with underage theater actors about “propaganda of homosexuality” and extremism.
The case of Tsvetkova began with the statement of the scammer Timur Bulatov. His main activity is the dismissal of teachers who are seen in LGBT “propaganda”. The basis for the denunciation of Tsvetkova was the body-positive drawings of women and vulvas, which the artist published in her public page on VKontakte “Vagina Monologues”. She is being tried under the article “Illegal production and circulation of pornographic materials using the Internet” (clause “b” part 3 of article 242 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), which provides for a maximum penalty of six years in prison.
From November 23, 2019 to March 16, 2020, Tsvetkova was under house arrest in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. During this time, two protocols were drawn up against her on “Propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” (part 2 of article 6.21 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation) – again for publications and drawings. A similar statement was drawn up against her mother, and again on a tip from Bulatov. The artist received homophobic threats and was prevented from receiving medical care. On March 16, 2020, Tsvetkova's preventive measure was changed to a written undertaking not to leave.
Consideration of the criminal case of Tsvetkova began in the spring of 2021 in the Central District Court of Komsomolsk-on-Amur behind closed doors. On May 1, 2021, she began a hunger strike demanding that the process not be delayed, that the court be opened to the public, and that a public defender be admitted. At the same time, a third administrative case was brought against the artist: this time with a demand to block her public “Vagina Monologues” for “pornographic images of female genital organs.”
On June 3, 2022, the Russian Ministry of Justice entered Tsvetkova into the register of media outlets as “foreign agents”. On June 14, the prosecutor's office in the debate requested for her 3 years 2 months of real time with serving in a penal colony. In a recent interview with the BBC, she said that her "life is completely destroyed."
Michelle
The case of a resident of Bryansk, a transgender woman Michelle, is based on her publication with three hentai pictures. It was made in 2013-14 "for the purpose of getting to know people of non-traditional sexual orientation." The person behind whom the case was initiated was E. V. Kosachev, senior detective of the “K” department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Bryansk region. He discovered these pictures in 2018. According to Michelle's friend Lada Preobrazhenskaya, at that time the woman had not used her page for a long time.
After discovering the images, Kosachev examined Michelle's page with the participation of attesting witnesses. At the same time, the report on the crime was drawn up only six months later. The examination was carried out in 2019. As a result, it was found that the pictures published by Michelle contain a pornographic image of a 12-year-old boy. Remember that these are illustrations that are not related to reality. They do not indicate the age of the characters, and the genitals, according to Current Time, are unlikely to belong to 12-year-old children. The authors of the expertise were the Center for Socio-Cultural Expertise, the same organization, according to the expertise of which the indictments in the cases of Pussy Riot, Jehovah's Witnesses, Tsvetkova, blogger Sinitsia and historian Yuri Dmitriev were announced. Examinations at the Center are carried out by mathematician Natalya Kryukova and translator Alexander Tarasov.
Michelle, who did not fully believe in the seriousness of the charges, agreed to a lawyer, pleaded guilty and made a deal with the investigation. As a result, the court sentenced her to three years in a penal colony. According to Michelle's friend, she did not undergo a psychiatric examination to officially recognize her transgender and took hormones on her own. Due to the fact that the diagnosis was made independently, Michelle was sent to the male cell of one of the Bryansk pre-trial detention centers.
In January 2020, the Bryansk regional released Michelle from the pre-trial detention center after an appeal. The verdict was canceled due to procedural violations during the investigation, and the case was sent for review in a different composition of the court.
Leopold Banionis
The case of the Moscow activist Leopold Banionis under Article 242, unlike other heroes of this material, did not receive any development. However, just like in most cases, it came out of nowhere.
In April 2022, the police came to Banionis' house with a search. They introduced themselves as employees of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, presented a search warrant from the Moscow City Court, but did not name the reason for the investigative measures. Banionis said that the search warrant contained articles on violent acts of a sexual nature (Article 132 of the Criminal Code), indecent acts (Article 135 of the Criminal Code), and the same article on the illegal production or trafficking of pornography.
However, the activist was not asked anything about them. The policemen were much more interested in Banionis’s attitude towards Russia’s war against Ukraine and Putin, as well as why he has a Ukrainian flag hanging on his wall, why he involves his own dog in his activism, for what purpose he went to Navalny’s colony and wrote letters to political prisoners.
As a result, Banionis was nevertheless detained. On April 20, the day after the search, the Khoroshevsky District Court of Moscow fined the activist 40,000 rubles. As it turned out, not for pornography or indecent acts. The reason for the dissatisfaction of the court was the flag allegedly hung by Banionis over the council of the Khoroshevo-Mnevniki district. He was charged with “discrediting” the Russian army (part 1 of article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses).
In early May, the activist left Russia because of threats to initiate a criminal case under the article on knowingly false reporting of an act of terrorism (Article 207 of the Criminal Code). After that, security forces began to visit his mother on a regular basis, looking for her son.
Andrey Borovikov
Andrey Borovikov, the former coordinator of Navalny's Arkhangelsk headquarters, received 2.5 years in prison in the case of the distribution of pornography. The "offense" occurred in 2014 when he reposted the Rammstein's Pussy video on VKontakte. The video hung on Borovikov’s page for 5 years, and in 2019 it was noticed by a former volunteer of Navalny’s Arkhangelsk headquarters, Alexander Durynin. According to him, at the headquarters he was engaged in social networks, but his texts were almost never published. After that, he became disillusioned with Navalny, and then wrote a denunciation of Borovikov.
In the center of the plot, Pussy is a sex-obsessed German who cannot satisfy his needs at home and is forced to travel abroad. In the video, the members of Rammstein play stereotypical male pornographic roles and have sex at the end. Sexological and cultural expertise considered that the video is indeed pornography and does not carry any cultural value.
In February 2020, Durynin came to Navalny's headquarters and started talking about the clip. He warned Borovikov about possible problems, in response to which he thanked his colleague and deleted the clip with the words “It would be cool if they filed a case against me for pornography.” All this time, Durynin was wearing a microphone, which the policemen had provided him with.
On April 29, 2021, the court sentenced Borovikov to 2.5 years in a penal colony. After the trial, the activist, who was under house arrest, was sent to a pre-trial detention center. In February 2022, the Cassation Court of St. Petersburg overturned the verdict, and the case was sent for a new trial to the Arkhangelsk Regional Court. In June, he denied a motion to have his sentence commuted to a non-custodial sentence. Borovikov is still in the colony.
Such a different article. 242. From pornography to pedophilia
Yuri Dmitriev
The case of Yury Dmitriev, a researcher of Stalinist repressions and the head of the Karelian branch of Memorial, began with a statement received by the law enforcement agencies of Petrozavodsk. In a letter dated December 2, 2016, the anonymous complainant writes that the human rights activist is photographing his 11-year-old adopted daughter N. in the nude. Two photographs were attached to the letter. On December 13, Dmitriev was detained; during a search, more than 200 photographs of his daughter were found on his computer, some of which she was without clothes. On the same day, a criminal case is opened against him under the article “Use of a minor for the purpose of producing pornographic materials” (clause “c”, part 2 of article 242.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The photographs in question were taken by Dmitriev, according to him, to monitor the health of the child. The human rights activist, himself raised by foster parents, adopted three-year-old N in 2008. After the orphanage, she had problems with physical development, underweight and general weakness – all this is confirmed by medical documents. All the years until Dmitriev's arrest, the guardianship authorities controlled the life of the girl: her health, conditions of detention and upbringing. In order to avoid claims against the family, Dmitriev photographed N. in the nude, thereby fixing the stages of her development. In none of the pictures is her adoptive father or any strangers. During their life together and during the interviews, N. did not express a single complaint against Dmitriev.
On April 5, 2018, the human rights activist was acquitted on charges of pornography and indecent acts, but on June 6, 2018, the investigator and psychologist interrogated the child again, asking her more than two hundred questions. This became the main reason for the annulment of Dmitriev's acquittal.
“This and previous interrogations and conversations with a psychologist show signs of manipulating the mind of a child in a stressful situation, abuse by the investigator and psychologist of the girl’s subordinate position in relation to adults, expressed in “leading” questions and leading her to “correct” answers from the point of view of the investigation. ", – says the website of the "Memorial".
On July 22, 2020, Dmitriev was again acquitted under the article on the production of pornography, but found guilty of sexual assault against a minor and sentenced to 3.5 years in prison. On September 29, 2020, the Supreme Court of Karelia extended Dmitriev's sentence from 3.5 to 13 years in prison, overturning the acquittal in the pornography case. On December 27, 2021, the 65-year-old historian was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In May 2022, he was transferred to a strict regime colony in Mordovia.
Konstantin Ishutov
The history of the persecution of the Chuvash opposition blogger Konstantin Ishutov began with the case of the “rehabilitation of Nazism” (part 2 of article 354.1 of the Criminal Code). He was sued in early October 2018 for a Facebook post made on July 29, 2018. In it, Ishutov comments on a German propaganda leaflet for the 1940s: “When the Third Reich treats the Soviet people better than Putin treats the Russian people.” In April 2019, another case was brought against Ishutov, again about the “rehabilitation of Nazism.” This time, signs of a crime were found in his 10-year-old LiveJournal publication, where the activist accused the Chuvash authorities of not taking care of the graves, unlike the Germans.
Later, a case was opened on the same porn article. During the persecution in the first case, a computer was confiscated from Ishutov, in which pornographic materials with the participation of minors were allegedly found. At the same time, as his lawyer Yuri Ivanov said, there was no inventory of the removal of files from Ishutov's equipment. He also pointed out that an examination of the found pornographic materials was appointed only in 2019, almost six months after the search. “I can assume that the investigators could not find sufficient evidence in the first case and decided to draw to the oppositionist a “negative image”, which creates a single word “pornography”,” Ivanov is quoted as saying by Idel.Realii.
On December 24, 2019, the Supreme Court of Chuvashia sentenced Ishutov to 3 years and 6 months in a penal colony on charges of distributing pornography, as well as a fine of 150,000 rubles in cases of “rehabilitation of Nazism.” In 2021, the Leninsky District Court of Cheboksary twice denied the activist parole.