Vokuev, Leonid Mikhailovich

Born on June 10, 1948 in the village of Izhma, Izhemsky district, Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic . After leaving school, he began working as a turner at the Vorkuta Mechanical Plant, then at the experimental plant of the Pechor Research Institute Project in Vorkuta .

From 1971 to 1981 he was a deputy of the Vorkuta City Council of People's Deputies. In 1980-1982 he worked as an instructor in the organizational department of the Vorkuta city executive committee.

In 1982, he was elected chairman of the Vorkuta District Executive Committee, where he worked until 1984. In 1984 he graduated from the Moscow Law Institute . In 1984-1990, he worked in the city executive committee, the city committee of the Communist Party of Vorkuta.

In 1990 he was elected People's Deputy of the Supreme Council of the Komi ASSR. From May 1990 to February 2002 he worked as head of the department of letters and reception of citizens of the secretariat, then the apparatus of the State Council of the Komi Republic .

On February 27, 2002, the Komi State Council was appointed the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Komi Republic. In 2002-2006, Vokuev received 6 thousand citizens on human rights violations ^[2] .

In May 2003, he was admitted as a full institutional member of the European Ombudsman Institute in Innsbruck .

In November 2006, members of the Syktyvkar organization of disabled people turned to Vokuev. According to them, the text on the cover of the "People with Disabilities" disc of the Tatu group contains insulting remarks about people with disabilities :

People with disabilities do not know what it means to be human. They are a fake on the basis of a humanoid disc. They do not live, but function. Their functions are described by the laws of mechanics and four other signs: cruelty, stupidity, greed, meanness.

Vokuev made a statement to the Moscow prosecutor Yuri Semin , which says that this inscription hurts the honor and dignity of the disabled. The appeal contains a request to conduct an audit and take “administrative measures”. Vokuev believes that the text of the annotation to the album contradicts article 21 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation , according to which "no one can belittle the dignity of citizens." Vokuev said that the group can be prosecuted for libel and public insult, as well as recover a million rubles in compensation for moral damage ^{[3] [4]} .

In an interview with a local newspaper, Vokuev stated ^[5] :

I here in my office through a computer listened to this disc. I listened to the song with the disabled. Her text is also complete nonsense. The refrain there is something like this repeated all the time: the disabled have no night of love, and they wake up without love.

In his opinion, further release of the disc should be discontinued.

According to the soloists of the group, the text is not intended to insult people with disabilities. In an interview with the BBC, Elena Katina said that the authors of the texts had in mind “moral freaks” and the phrase was taken out of context ^[6] . This was confirmed by Yulia Volkova in an interview with NTV : “in this song we did not mean physical, but moral freaks” ^[7] . They also reported that expression is a metaphor ^[8] .

The excuses of the soloists of the group Vokuev commented as follows: ^[9] :

“What are they saying there?” Did you mean moral disabilities? There is no such. There are people with disabilities of the first, second, third degree. And there are people morally omitted . And all these excuses in hindsight ...

Vokuev sent a copy of his appeal to the prosecutor's office to the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, Vladimir Lukin . Lukin, at a meeting with Vokuev on December 11, said that bringing Tatu to justice would be unreasonable. However, he noted that the use of the word “disabled person” is politically incorrect ^[10] .

The blog service LiveJournal.com ( LiveJournal ) has a diary on behalf of Vokuev. As one of the users, the user of the magazine uses the image of the character of Batman ^[11] . In the apparatus of Vokuev, the latter is denied any involvement in this diary ^[12] .

In his interview at the request of the journalist, to compare the contents of the song “Kill the Jew!” Of the rock band “ Instructions for Survival ” with the text on the cover of the album “Tatu” Vokuev said that “ Jew ” is a common word and is not an insult. In this regard, Vokuev himself was accused of insulting the Jews ^{[13] [14] [15]} .

The publication "Business News Komi" suggested that in this way Vokuev is trying to maintain his position ^[16] . However, Vokuev said that his actions were dictated exclusively by concern for human rights ^[17] .

On December 12, Vokuev and Tatu took part in the Let They Talk program on the First Channel of Russian Television with TV host Andrei Malakhov . State Duma deputy Alexei Mitrofanov , journalist of the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper Arthur Gasparyan, spoke in defense of the group.

• Biography of Leonid Vokuev (inaccessible link)
• Disabled people suing tAtu