On April 13, the Russian government gave a negative response to the amendments proposed by the Chechen parliament to the federal law “On Combating Extremist Activities” concerning collections of hadiths and works of canonical Islamic schools.
The bill was submitted to the State Duma on January 27. As stated in the explanatory note of the Chechen legislators, the law on countering extremism already stipulates that the Bible, Koran, Tanakh and Ganjur, their contents and quotes from them cannot be recognized as extremist materials. However, “other religious literary and written monuments are often the subject of litigation, ... which leads to public outcry and mass indignation.”
Chechen parliamentarians proposed expanding the list of religious scriptures that are not subject to recognition as extremist materials by including collections of hadiths and works of ulama of the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali madhhabs.
In addition, the bill provides that sacred scriptures cannot be recognized as extremist materials, both in the text of the original source and in translations into the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation.
These amendments, according to their authors, are aimed at protecting the right of citizens to freedom of conscience and religion.
In the official response of the Russian government, however, it is noted that “the bill contains language that allows for the possibility of ambiguous interpretation, which can be used to import extremist literature into the country and distribute it.”
The review, signed by the head of the government apparatus, Dmitry Grigorenko, also states that the courts are competent enough to decide for themselves whether controversial materials are extremist or not. If necessary, they have the opportunity to attract experts in the field of philological, linguistic, psychological and religious disciplines.
On January 27, the Chechen parliament introduced another package of “religious extremist” amendments to the State Duma - this time to the Code of Administrative Procedure. They concern changes in the jurisdiction of cases on recognition of information materials as extremist.
Now such cases are considered by district courts. “However, judicial practice shows that often information materials recognized as extremist are materials of national, historical, cultural and religious heritage, which leads to public outcry and mass outrage,” says the explanatory note to the bill and proposes to classify such significant cases as the competence of the supreme court of the republic, regional, regional court, court of a federal city, court of an autonomous region and court of an autonomous district.
In addition, the amendments propose to legislate for the courts the obligation to involve in the consideration of such cases the rights holders, authors of works and (or) translations, “and if a claim is filed to recognize a religious publication as extremist material, then also representatives of centralized religious organizations and specialists in the relevant religion.”
The bill has been sent to relevant committees and governments for study and feedback.