On the 70th anniversary of lifting the Blockade of Leningrad, Russian “Dozhd” channel posted a poll asking the audience to answer the following question of whether they considered it reasonable to surrender the city in order to save the life of residents. The question, of course, sparked outrage to not only residents and their descendants leading a life-and-death struggle in the blockage, but also millions of other people.
I, for example, did not like the question either, because my grandfather was an officer in the Soviet army, and had reached Reichstag during the war. What does it mean to surrender the city to the Nazis, allegedly to be saved? It is same as asking whether it was reasonable to leave Karabakh under Azerbaijan’s jurisdiction, so that the country’s leadership would organize the same to Armenian people as it had done in Sumgait and Baku.
Anyway, it is one thing to disagree, criticize, argue, and condemn any publication of the media, another thing to criminalize it, making it a subject of prosecution by the State. Russia’s authorities are guided by these very worst Soviet traditions, fighting against TV channel following the style of Stalin agitprop. Moreover, the House debated the bill on this occasion, against the acquittal of Nazism. Members, in this respect, the State Duma is discussing a bill against Nazi acquittal. The members of ruling party propose to add an Article in the Criminal Code, providing various kinds of punishments, up to 5 years in prison.
In principle, Nazism “rehabilitation” is a reprehensible phenomenon, and if any such law were passed by a democratic country, no problem would arise. But, there’s a great risk in Russia that such laws are adopted on specific purposes, and their meaning will be distorted.
Why are such initiatives of “our customs leaders” dangerous? First, under “Nazi acquittal”, one can understand any phenomenon that the authorities do not like. Specifically in this case, associating the offensive question of “Dozhd” with Nazism, I repeat, requires a huge imagination. Obviously, there would be people with such “flexibility” of mind, both in the legal system and among the official propagators. Experts of poison-pen letters will also appear; “worth” grandchildren and great-grandchildren of their grandfathers in 1930. When any opinion is criminalized, the representatives of this “family” become full of boundless enthusiasm.
Referring to “ideological articles” of the Criminal Code, any person non-pleasing authorities or the media can be persecuted. Specifically for “Dozhd”, there are doubts that the Kremlin is not against the controversial question, rather than how the media covers the events in Ukraine.
Vladimir Lukin, Russian Human Rights Commissioner, presented a principal objection against such bills. He half-jokingly said that in this case we must decide on the standards of covering the invasions of Genghis Khan or Napoleon under the Criminal Code.
For example, Russia’s current President Vladimir Putin, most likely, is a fan of Stalin. The entire Russian “elite”, state governance, official propaganda is “designed” in this very style. Suppose, it will legislatively be defined that Stalin should only be praised. It will be followed by the replacement of Putin by another leader, which, likely, will find that the killing of millions of people in concentration camps was not a good thing, and under the ruling of the next President, a law will be passed that Stalin should only be decried. Both are equally wrong. Of course, in the Constitutions of many countries, including Russia and Armenia, there is and should be a constitutional norm, which prohibits propaganda of violence or racism. It has nothing to do with the expression of an opinion.
And the best solution for the media is given in the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Congress has no right to set the laws that restrict freedom of expression and of the media. Short and clear.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
