Title: My article “On anarchism and violence” is now banned in Russia
Topics: censorship, Russia
Date: 7 December 2013
Source: Retrieved on 3rd November 2021 from avtonom.org

28th of November Lenin district court of the city of Tyumen uphold a request of the prosecutor of the Lenin district on recognition a text I wrote two years ago as “extremist”.

My article “on anarchism and violence” was published in issue 33 of Avtonom journal in autumn of 2011, and also in 5th issue of Finnish anarchist journal Väärinajattelija. I published both of these texts with a pseudonyme, as I did not want Russian authorities to pay unsoliticed attention to my person. Now I have translated this text to English, as I would like as many people as possible to make conclusion on justification of the decision of the Lenin district court of Tyumen.

Ural regional center of juridical examination”, which prepared expertise of my article, did not followed framework set up In this law. According to them, my text “has signs of justification of violent activities, which might be directed towards any person, and not necessarily against any concrete group”. Thus they found in my article instigating hatred against “racial, national, religious or social group”which was not against any racial, national, religious or social group!

My texts handles issue of violence in such an abstract level, that obviously “experts” have completely missed what it was all about. If these “experts” want to oppose any kind of violence whatsoever, why they do not want to ban police, army or governments? Obviously, it might be these “experts” understood point of my text excellently, and they just want to make activities of anarchists and other dissidents as difficult as possible, and to employ thousands of buraucrats for whom maintenance and governing of “list of extremist materials” provides means of living.