Press Release, 19.08.2022

Photo: Lawyers Andrei Chertkov and Leonid Krikun, and Alexander Shishlov (from left to right) / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

The Petrogradsky District Court in St.Petersburg held the first hearing in an administrative case initiated against Alexander Shishlov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, under Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (“Public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”).

The court supported the motions of the defence to attach to the case the conclusions by experts I.A. Levinskaya and D.V. Dubrovsky, containing a critical assessment of the “expert opinion” compiled by V. Abakanova, Associate Professor of the Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University, and on the appointment of psychological and linguistic expertise.

The ruling of the court states that it cannot recognise “the document presented in the case file, referred to as an expert opinion” as admissible evidence both on formal and factual grounds.

A new psychological and linguistic expertise should establish the presence or absence of “discrediting of the Russian army” in Alexnder Shishlov’s publications on VKontakte social media. The North-West Regional Centre for Expertise of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation was entrusted with holding a new expertise. The motion of Shishlov’s defence to commission the expertise to the regional public organization The Guild of Linguistics Experts in Documentation and Information Disputes was rejected by the court.

The next hearing in the Petrogradsky District Court will be held on 2 September at 11:00.

The protocol on an administrative offense was drawn up on the basis of an expert opinion made at the request of the St. Petersburg Public Prosecutor’s Office. Expert Veronika Abakanova, Associate Professor of the Department of Criminal Procedure at the Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University, wrote in her expert opinion that “the author’s intention was to publicly discredit the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and destabilise the situation in the country”.

Abakanova writes in her expertise that in one of the posts Alexander Shishlov criticised the announcement of a minute of silence in memory of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, ex-leader of the pro-government LDPR party, since Zhirinovsky incited hatred and aggression. In the second post, Shishlov spoke negatively about the initiative to introduce criminal punishment for insulting the St. George Ribbon and giving it state status, and also wrote about the inappropriateness of folding the ribbon into the Latin letter Z which is a symbol of the “special operation”.

Photo: Public in the hearing / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

During the court session, Alexander Shishlov’s lawyers, lawyers Leonid Krikun and Andrei Chertkov, filed several motions, including the one on permitting photo and video filming of the session, which was attended by more than 40 listeners and journalists.

In addition, the court satisfied the motion by the defense of Alexander Shishlov, who asked to attach to the case the study of the expert opinion of Veronika Abakanova by two professional experts with extensive work experience. Academic specialists Dr. Irina Levinskaya (author of over 80 expert assessments) and Dr. Dmitry Dubrovsky (conducted over 60 expert assessments) independently draw conclusions that the expertise performed by Abakanova was professionally incompetent.

Dr. Dmitry Dubrovsky in his opinion noted that the expertise of Veronika Abakanova was written “from a position of total disregard for the main requirements for expertise: it was written by a lawyer without background in the field of philology and psychology, answered legal questions, did not use the required research methodology, and was entirely grounded on speculation and subjective assessments. There was no study in this text.”

According to Dr. Irina Levinskaya, “V.A.Abakanova does not quote or analyse any of the texts by Alexander Shishlov as a whole, taking some quotes out of the context which makes impossible to assess the intention of the author of the text, in spite of the fact that the law requires to analyse texts in full.  There is no methodology in her conclusion, and the analysis is replaced by evaluative subjective judgments.”

After the hearing, Alexander Shishlov expressed his gratitude to the listeners who came to support him, as well as to the journalists for their interest in this case.

“For the first six months of this year 120 people in St.Petersburg were brought to administrative responsibility under Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (“discrediting of the Russian army”), and in Russia the number of such people is already measured in thousands. Citizens of Russia are brought to responsibility under this article for actually expressing their own opinion, which is different from the official position of the state. At the same time, it follows from the constitutional norms that everyone has the right to think freely and freely express their opinion in the Russian Federation, as in a democratic and law-bound state, without fear of being persecuted by any side, first of all by the state”, Alexander Shishlov said.

According to Boris Vishnevsky, MP of the Legislative Assembly of St.Peterburg and Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko party, the Alexander Shishlov case is as absurd as other similar accusations of “discrediting the armed forces” and “fakes”, and is built on a blatantly unprofessional and biased “expert opinion”.

“Expert Abakanova, saw a certain “orientation of intent to publicly discredit the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and destabilise the situation in the country” in Alexander Shishlov’s post, taking up the function of the court of law. As for the “destabilisation of the situation in the country”, if anything destabilises it, it is political repressions and persecution of citizens for criticising the authorities,” Vishnevsky said.

It should be noted that after Shishlov was accused of “discrediting the Armed Forces”, he began to receive threats and insults via the Internet. Shishlov appealed to the Public Prosecutor of St.Petersburg Viktor Melnik, and Shishlov’s lawyer Leonid Krikun filed an application with the head of the interior in the region demanding to initiate a criminal case on the fact of threats addressed to deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St.Petersburg.

Earlier, 34 administrative protocols were drawn up against 27 members and supporters of Yabloko under the article on “discrediting the army”, including member of the Federal Political Committee of the party, leader of the Pskov Yabloko Lev Shlosberg, head of the Novorzhevsky district of the Pskov region Sofya Pugacheva, municipal deputies Nikolai Kuzmin, Andrei Morev and Nodari Khananashvili.

Read more about the persecution of Yabloko members after the start of the “special operation”.

ALEXANDER SHISHLOV

is head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, and a member of the Federal Political Committee of the Yabloko party