Officials Draw Up List of Banned Books
Russian officials on Saturday revealed the first ever list of extremist works which include 14 books, audio and video materials banned by court as inciting racial hatred. The Federal Registration Service said the list would be updated every six months. Human rights activists, meanwhile, fear that any opposition works may be listed as extremist due to the weakness of law.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta has published a list of extremist works to include 14 books, CDs and visual works with explicit fascist, nationalist and ultra-religion content. The list included Book of Monotheism by Muhammad ibn Suleiman at-Tamimi, The Eternal Jew, a Nazi propaganda film, several leaflets, newspaper articles of regional anti-Semites and nationalists and a CD called "The Whites’ Music" by Siberian band, Order. All these materials were ruled extremist by court between 2004 and 2006. Their circulation is classified as inciting racial hatred which carries up to 5 years in prison.
The federal anti-extremism law bans books by Nazism’s ideologues and any printed materials that justify national or racial supremacy or crimes against an ethnic, social, racial or religious group. The Federal Registration Service’s director Sergey Vasilyev said the list will be published twice a year. He said he hopes that the black list will be getting new entries with every update.
Human rights activists, however, are not upbeat. “We have long been pressing to ban the listed works,” says Lev Ponomarev, leader of the For Human Rights movement. “The problem is that anti-extremism law is lax and blurred, and any appeal to a social confrontation can be considered extremism, which comes close to persecution for political views.”
Krasnodar Region’s prosecutors sent a warning to the local branch of the Yabloko party for publishing two books by their leader, Andrey Piontkovsky, which prosecutors viewed as having signs of extremis. The warning was later withdrawn.
Alexander Belov, leader of the nationalist-leaning Movement against Illegal Immigration, says he is against the list. “If there are more bans, more people will want to defy them,” he said.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of July 16, 2007
|
