Historian criticizes Russian court that imprisoned student for reading fictional book that happened to have Nazi symbol on cover
Historian Dyukov called the court's decision to imprison a student for a book with a Nazi symbol absurd
- May 11, 2023 13:06
- Maksim Goldshtein , Journalist for Reedus.
A student of the history department, an employee of the archaeological bureau, Vladimir Panin, was sent to prison because he read a book with Nazi symbols on the cover in the subway. Such a verdict was handed down the day before by the Basmanny District Court.
The case file states that on the morning of May 6, at the Chistye Prudy metro station, student Panin “held an object in the form of a book in both hands.” It is about the book “Black March. Memoirs of an SS officer 1938-1945" by Peter Neumann from the series "Beyond the front line. Memoirs". The dangerous book depicts a soldier wearing a German helmet with forbidden symbols.
The court ruled that the student "carried out a public demonstration to an unlimited circle of persons - passengers of the Moscow Metro - Nazi paraphernalia." At the same time, the judge did not take into account that Panin studies at the Faculty of History and simultaneously works at the Metropolitan Archaeological Bureau, and studied the book as a historical source due to his education. The student was found guilty and sent under administrative arrest for five days.
Member of the commission of the Council under the President of Russia on interethnic relations, director of the Historical Memory Foundation Alexander Dyukov, in an interview with Reedus, criticized the position of the Basmanny Court. According to the historian, reading the book "Black March" in the subway cannot be considered as a case of propaganda or justification of Nazi ideology. The reason for this lies on the back cover, which states the following:
“A young man from a modest German family, fooled by Hitler's propaganda, becomes a convinced Nazi. <...> With monstrous frankness, he describes how the SS troops robbed the population, carried out punitive operations, interrogations and executions of partisans, and the killing of civilians.
“The presentation in this book is defiantly anti-Nazi, it does not justify any Nazi crimes. If the police could see the image of a soldier with the letters "SS" on the helmet on one side of the cover, then they could see the annotation on the other side of it. It clearly demonstrates the absence of any signs of propaganda of the Nazi ideology.says the historian.
In addition, the court, for some reason, ignored the footnote to Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation , introduced by a special federal law in March 2020, continued Dyukov.
The note states that the provisions of the article do not apply to cases where Nazi symbols are displayed in the context of a negative attitude towards the ideology of Nazism and when there are no signs of propaganda or justification of Nazi ideology.
“The amendment to the article in 2020 was introduced for a reason. Before its adoption, even images of Soviet soldiers at the Victory Parade in 1945, throwing Nazi banners to the mausoleum, formally fell under the article. To prevent such incidents from happening, our legislator introduced a corresponding note in the Code of Administrative Offenses, ”Dyukov noted.
“What happened to the police, who apparently decided to cut a stick on this? - asks the interlocutor of Reedus. “What happened to the court, which actually “stamped” the decision and sent to prison for five days a person who had never been seen promoting Nazi ideology?”
According to the expert, student Panin simply needs to file an appeal, since the decision of the Basmanny Court is, to put it mildly, doubtful.
“From a moral point of view, we are faced with absolute absurdity. The idea that the image of a Nazi officer on the cover of a book could somehow bring moral suffering to others is frankly far-fetched. Not a single victim from this image was presented in court, ”Dyukov summed up.