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| *"The ] heroes are going. ], Atteriyev, ], and today - ]. It is as if they are being devoured, swallowed by a terrible, black malodorous abyss. The name of that abyss is Russia. Russia's immeasurable baseness and perfidy, her pathological dishonesty and criminality as a country, a civilization, a historical agent." | *"The ] heroes are going. ], Atteriyev, ], and today - ]. It is as if they are being devoured, swallowed by a terrible, black malodorous abyss. The name of that abyss is Russia. Russia's immeasurable baseness and perfidy, her pathological dishonesty and criminality as a country, a civilization, a historical agent." | ||
| Stomakhin pleaded not guilty. According to ], news agency, cited by the Committee to Protect Journalists he said he was "tried for his views and not for any real crime. ... In the articles, I expressed my opinion, with which people were free to agree or disagree." He said an opinion was not a “call to action.” | Stomakhin pleaded not guilty. According to ], news agency, cited by the Committee to Protect Journalists he said he was "tried for his views and not for any real crime. ... In the articles, I expressed my opinion, with which people were free to agree or disagree." He said an opinion was not a “call to action.” Stomakhin was periodicaly laughing when the judge was reading his sentence.<ref name="Lenta"/> | ||
| ==Commentaries== | ==Commentaries== | ||
Revision as of 06:13, 24 September 2009
Boris Vladimirovich Stomakhin (Russian: Борис Владимирович Стомахин) (born August 24, 1974, Moscow) is a Russian radical political activist, journalist, and editor of hate speech periodicals. He was convicted to five years in prison on charges of inciting ethnic hatred and making public appeals for extremist activity. The conviction is questioned by human rights protection organizations ARTICLE 19, Committee to Protect Journalists, and Union of Councils for Soviet Jews.
Journalism and political activism
Before turning to radicalism, Stomakhin was a member of maoist Revolutionary Workers Party.
Stomakhin was a leader of a radical political group "Revolutionary Contact Association" (RCA). Other members of this organization are Pavel Kantor, Dmitry Tarasov, Ludmila Evstifeeva, and Pavel Luzakov. They organized a number of pickets against Russian foreign policy in Ukraine, Estonia, Belarus, Chechnya.
Boris Stomkhin made public calls for mass murdering of Russians.
Since 2000, Boris Stomakhin was an editor of the monthly newspaper "Radical Politics". In addition, he contributed numerous materials to Kavkaz Center, the radical Islamic internet agency that promotes the independence of Chechnya and is maintained by Chechen separatists.
Stomakhin claimed that Russian troops in Chechnya are "occupiers" and compared President Vladimir Putin to Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milošević. According to his court sentence, Stomakhin also stated that modern Russia is an Evil empire and therefore must be destroyed, and considered Shamil Basaev and Salman Raduev as heroes of the Chechen resistance whose terrorist activities are legitimate. However, some human rights activists like Valeria Novodvorskaya and Yakov Krotov did not believe that he actually promoted any terrorist activities.
Opening of a criminal case against Stomakhin
Attempts to prosecute Stomakhin for hate speech were made unsuccessfully in 2000.
Successful application to prosecute Stomakhin was made by opposition Communist Party Duma member of parlament Viktor Zorkalcev at the request of another Communist party member Valentina Lavrova. Valentina Lavrova has acquired a copy of Stomakhin Radical Politics periodical, while being on manifestation on Mayakovskaya square in September 2002. Being insulted by the text of periodicals she hasn't rushed immediately to authorities, and began to collect the evidence by visiting public actions of Stomakhin and acquiring new numbers of his periodical. After collecting the evidence she reffered not to police or security authorities, but to the member of parliament, Viktor Zorkalcev.
Stomakhin's home was searched in April 2004 and his computers and books were confiscated.
Arrest and trial
Having returned to Moscow, Stomakhin was arrested on March 21 2006. Stomakhin tried to escape during his arrest and fell down from fourth floor of his building, according to his lawyer Alexei Golubev and news reports. His spine and bones were broken as a result.
Stomakhin was subsequently interrogated. Psychiatry experts at the Moscow Serbsky Institute found that Stomakhin was competent to stand trial. Stomakhin fled to Ukraine seeking political asylum, which was eventually denied.
He was sentenced to five years of prison for inciting hatred and defamatory statements aimed at groups and persons of particular religious and ethnic background and for promoting violent change of constitutional regime and violation of territorial integrity of Russian Federation (articles 280 and 282 of the Russian Criminal Code).
Below are some excerpts from Stomakhin's articles cited as incriminating evidence in the court sentence:
- "Let tens of new Chechen snipers take their positions in the mountain ridges and the city ruins and let hundreds, thousands of aggressors fall under righteous bullets! No mercy! Death to the Russian occupiers!" (the article was written in response to rape and murder of Chechen women Elza Kungaeva by Yuri Budanov)
- "We, 'Revolutionary Contact Association' and 'Radical Politics' are united with the Committee 2008 and are ready to cooperate with it. However we a lot more radical. We are for not waiting until 2008 and bothering ourselves particularly with the Constitution, but we are for calling people to overthrow the Putin's regime as soon as possible. And we do not see any possibility of preserving Russian Federation as a single state. But we are ready to unite with all allies, even those that are more moderate".
- "Bombing in Moscow subway was justified, natural and legal... The Chechens have full moral right to blow up anything they want in Russia after all that Russia and Russians did to them, none objections on humanism and philanthropy could be accepted."
- "All Chechnya is currently filled up with the same Budanovs, maniacs, blood lusting sadists, murderers and degenerates with epaulets . The entire Russian occupation army consists of such Budanovs".
- "In Chechnya Russian army ceased to exist as a military structure of state, being transformed into a devilish gang of marauders and killers, the gang intoxicated from narcotics".
- "Precisely the bloody, cannibalistic ferocity of this state against a small and defenceless mountain nation was the first to inspire our mind with this thought: Russia must be destroyed forever, a state that allows itself to do such things to entire nations must not exist at all!"
- "The Chechen heroes are going. Dudayev, Atteriyev, Khattab, and today - Raduyev. It is as if they are being devoured, swallowed by a terrible, black malodorous abyss. The name of that abyss is Russia. Russia's immeasurable baseness and perfidy, her pathological dishonesty and criminality as a country, a civilization, a historical agent."
Stomakhin pleaded not guilty. According to RIA Novosti, news agency, cited by the Committee to Protect Journalists he said he was "tried for his views and not for any real crime. ... In the articles, I expressed my opinion, with which people were free to agree or disagree." He said an opinion was not a “call to action.” Stomakhin was periodicaly laughing when the judge was reading his sentence.
Commentaries
Some journalists like M. Smolin from Komsomolskaya Pravda described his views as extremely russophobic, and suggested that Stomakhin is mentally ill. .
Stomakhin was qualified as a prisoner of conscience" by the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews and as a political prisoner in an open letter send to G7 leaders by Russia's human rights activists Sergei Kovalev, Yelena Bonner.
A group of Russian citizens including Vladimir Bukovsky condemned the conviction of Stomakhin as prosecution of free speech.
Widow of Andrei Sakharov Elena Bonner compared Stomakhin with Soviet dissidents who were prosecuted for their writings by Yuri Andropov. Human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina and politician Valeria Novodvorskaya argued that Stomakhin's writings while being "absolutely outrageous" and "inciting national hatred" had not been a public threat: they were very unlikely to incite anybody
Journalist Vladimir Abarinov criticized court proceedings as an example of Kangaroo court He claimed that the criminal case against Stomakhin was opened based on solely an article about Russian Orthodox Church that was not written by Stomakhin. It was decided by the court that Stomakhin actually copied this article from a Live Journal entry, as well as other publications of numerous news agencies. The authors of the original work disagree to share their responsibility with Stomakhin citing that he had reproduced their works without permission and distorted the original meaning.
Critics of the court decision were denounced by Russian publicist Maxim Sokolov. In his article published in pro-governmental Izvestia after the conviction of Stomakhin he pointed that Stomakhin's writings were worse than Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler and that the hate speech must be prosecuted according to the article 282 of the Russian criminal code. He cited in support a text written by Boris Stomakhin, that "Russian Federation and Russians must be exterminated" by all available means including Nuclear bomb, because all Russians are collectively responsible for actions of their government with respect to Chechen people. According to Sokolov, the cited passage made application of the article 282 completely appropriate.
References
- Lenin, facsists and sexual minorities freedom
- ^ Maxim Sokolov Trap-282 Izvestia 23 November 2006
- Independent journalist given five-year sentence allegedly for inciting ethnic strife
- ^ Official Court Sentence on Russian language dated 20.11.2006 Cite error: The named reference "sent" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- Boris Stomakhin:Victim of the Regime or a Terrorist Radio Liberty Template:Ru icon
- ^ Stomakhin Case - by Vladimir Abarinov for grani.ru.
- Radical politics and unrestrainted silliness
- Prima News Agency report
- NewsRu Agency report
- Lenta.Ru Agency report
- Regnum News Agency report
- Grani News Agency report
- Human Rights Activists Website of Valeria Novodvorskaya article
- Center of Extremal Journalism article
- RIAN News Agency investigation
- RIAN News Agency news article
- ^ Lenta.ru news agency article
- Komsomolskaya Pravda article
- Open letter in support of Boris Stomakhin
- Letter by Sannikova and Bonner.
- ^ Conviction of Boris Stomakhin: Opinions (Russian) - by Anna Karpuk for grani.ru Cite error: The named reference "Opinions" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- Scapegoats - by Valeria Novodvorskaya for grani.ru
- Second-hand fascism - by Valeria Novodvorskaya for grani.ru
- Official Court Sentence on Russian language dated 20.11.2006
External links
- Template:Ru icon Official Court Sentence, dated November 20, 2006
- Web site in support of Boris Stomakhin
- Articles by Boris Stomakhin
- The article 'Death to Russia' by Boris Stomkahin in Google cache
- Revolutionary Contact Association website
- Revolutionary Contact Association website
- Another website of Revolutionary Contact Association