Terentyev case

On February 15, 2007 , police found an entry left by Terentyev on the Syktyvkar journalist Boris Suranov’s online blog , regarded by them as “aimed at inciting hatred or hostility towards a social group” - police :

“I hate cops, I do not agree with the thesis that“ the policemen still have the mentality of a repressive baton in the hands of those in power ”. first of all, cops. secondly, did not stay. he is simply ineradicable. rubbish - and rubbish in Africa. who goes to the cops - cattle, gopota - the most stupid, uneducated representatives of the living (rel) world. it would be nice if in the center of every city in Russia, on the main square (in Syktyvkar - right in the center of Stefanovskaya, where the Christmas tree stands so that you can see it) there was a furnace, as in Auschwitz, where ceremonially, daily, or better - twice per day (at noon and midnight, for example) - would be burned at the wrong cop. people to burn. it would be the first step towards cleansing society from the Cop-Gopot dirt. ”

This text appeared as a comment on a blog post about the seizure of six hard drives from computers on February 14, 2007 by the Iskra newspaper of the city of Inta ( Komi Republic ) by police officers from department “K” .

On March 16, a search was conducted in the apartment of Savva Terentyev, during which his computer was seized.

The prosecutor's office initiated two examinations conducted by scientists of the Syktyvkar State University - forensic linguistic and socio-humanitarian. According to the results of the first, conducted under the leadership of the candidate of philological sciences Natalya Sergieva , it was concluded that there were no calls to incite social hatred in the commentary.

The results of the second examination carried out by four scientists of the same university - doctor of historical sciences Yuri Shabaev , doctor of philosophical sciences Igor Goncharov , doctor of philological sciences Mikhail Melikhov and candidate of historical sciences Pyotr Kotov - found signs of social hostility in the commentary. In February 2008, the same composition of specialists conducted an additional socio-humanitarian examination on an expanded range of issues, which became the main evidence of guilt available to the prosecution.

On August 9, 2007 , and then again on February 22, 2008 , the prosecutor's office of the Komi Republic Savva was charged under part 1 of art. 282 of the Criminal Code "The incitement of hatred or enmity, as well as the humiliation of human dignity ... committed publicly or using the media." A preventive measure in the form of a recognizance not to leave was chosen.

The trial began on March 31, 2008. The first court decision in the case was the removal from the materials of the conclusion of the socio-humanitarian examination No. 27 as illegally obtained evidence. The defense of the accused requested that the case be returned for further investigation due to procedural violations, however, she was denied this. The court also refused to exclude from the case protocols of interrogations of experts from the University of Syktyvkar. At the first court hearing in his case, Savva Terentyev acknowledged the authorship of the commentary. At the same time, he categorically denied his guilt in inciting hatred of the police, claiming that he spoke only about dishonest employees. Terentyev apologized to all decent police officers, as well as prisoners of concentration camps, whom his comment could hurt.

On April 16, 2008, a second court hearing was held. The meeting began in the office of Judge L. I. Sukhareva, in the absence of the public and the press, which prompted comments about the closed nature of the hearings without a proper court decision. Later, the meeting moved to a larger room. After hearing the witnesses from the prosecution, the judge withdrew almost all the witnesses and the evidence of the defense, including opinions on the case of several deputies of the State Duma and the results of a survey of the population of the Levada Center regarding citizens towards the police. In response to the protest of the prosecution, the review of the conclusions of the socio-humanitarian examinations, characterizing not only the rejected opinion No. 27, but also the competence of the experts who wrote it and who testified as prosecution witnesses, was not included in the case. Not being included in the case file as evidence, the text of the review was read by the defendant's lawyer. Defense witnesses already in the courthouse were heard by the court.

On April 23, 2008, the third court session was held. Witnesses to the defense were heard. Two of them were polls characterizing the negative attitude of the majority of both Russian citizens as a whole and Internet community participants to law enforcement agencies, substantiating the essence of the statement by Savva Terentyev to the country's public opinion. The court refused to attach the results of the polls to the case. For the first time, the witness of the defense explained to the court the difference between e-mail , forum , blog , the difference between blog post (entry) and comment (recall), because the judge and the prosecutor did not have a clear idea of ​​the place and conditions in which the alleged crime was committed.

One of the witnesses, who worked for 30 years in law enforcement agencies, confirmed to the court the universality of the word " cop " and the presence among employees of those to whom the words "cattle" and " murmur " are applicable . He said that putting on a tunic with epaulettes, receiving money for his service, the employee should adequately endure hardships and hardships, including undergoing a negative attitude of citizens towards people in his profession. Another witness in his testimony stated that the power in a democratic country should provide citizens with the opportunity to criticize themselves, regardless of the form of criticism.

The defense submitted the opinion of an independent expert Kostanov, testifying to the inapplicability of Art. 282 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on the act considered by the court, and on the erroneous conclusions of the socio-humanitarian examinations. In particular, in one of them, materials of the Russian Wikipedia ^{[3] [4]} were used to define the concepts of “ hatred ” and “ manipulation of public consciousness”. The court refused to attach Kostanov’s conclusion to the case. The defense made a request for a psycholinguistic examination of the text, as recommended by the methodological instructions of the Prosecutor General’s Office in the case of application of Art. 282, and proposed to entrust its free conduct to the relevant state expert institution in Moscow. The prosecution also offered to conduct an examination, but, for the third time, socio-humanitarian, and again order it for a fee to scientists from Syktyvkar . The court rejected the defense. The court upheld the petition of the prosecution, but at the request of the defense ordered the prosecution to prepare documents attesting to the competence of possible experts from among local scientists in their fields of knowledge. The court rejected the defense’s demand to confirm the expert qualifications of the experts, with the motivation “any specialist can conduct an examination”. In the list of experts proposed by the prosecutor, only one has ever participated in a forensic examination.

On July 7, 2008, Savva Terentyev was sentenced to a year of imprisonment on probation ^[5] .

Terentyev’s lawyers filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court of the Komi Republic. The complaint was examined by a panel of three judges on August 19, 2008. Composition of the board: Alexander Shadlov (presiding judge), Lev Sivkov (judge-rapporteur), Valerian Sverchkov. Sivkov and Sverchkov were police officers themselves some time ago. . The court rejected the cassation appeal ^[6] .

In January 2009, Terentyev’s lawyers filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights , located in Strasbourg . The complaint filed noted that the verdict violated Article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms , which guaranteed freedom of speech. In addition, Terentyev asked the European Court of Human Rights to pay attention to violations by the courts of the Komi Republic, where his case was examined, of a number of provisions of the sixth article of the European Convention guaranteeing a fair trial. As compensation for the non-pecuniary damage suffered, Savva Terentyev also requested the Strasbourg court to recover 3,500 euros from the Russian Federation in his favor ^[7] . The ECHR accepted Terentyev’s complaint for consideration and in January 2016 reported it to the Russian authorities ^[8] . In 2018, the ECHR issued a decision in which it found a violation of freedom of speech in the authorities' actions and ordered Terentyev to compensate for the costs, but refused to reimburse him for non-pecuniary damage ^[2] . The amount of compensation awarded to Terentyev amounted to 5 thousand euros ^[9] .

Savva Terenev left for Estonia on a tourist visa on January 14, 2011, and three days later turned to the authorities with a request for granting him political refugee status, substantiating his appeal with the fact of the persecution in Russia for criticizing the police and the circumstances surrounding the criminal prosecution.

On July 12, 2011, Savva received political asylum in Estonia. His wife and son, born in 2011, when the couple were already in Estonia, received a residence permit as members of the political refugee family. According to him, he is not going to return to Russia ^[10] .

• Savva Terentyev, who called for the burning of “wrong cops,” received political asylum in Estonia, “7 × 7”, 07/12/2011.
• Open letter to President Dmitry Medvedev in the case of Savva Terentyev (inaccessible link - history , copy )
• Analysis of the case of Savva. English article
• The case of Savva Terentyev is continued by offended young ladies, "Private Correspondent", 11/23/2008.
• Article in Kommersant
• Unwanted comment. Business newspaper "Vzglyad"
• Suranov's article
• Prosecutor's Office of Komi indicted blogger for comment on LiveJournal news
• Screenshots of the discussion, on the basis of which a charge was brought under part 1 of art. 282 of the Criminal Code non-authoritative source? ]
• Court sentence
• Blogger: “The Terentyev Case” will allow several million Russians to be imprisoned, Rosbalt, 07/08/2008.