Since the beginning of 2023, publications have been spreading that refer to problems with freedom of speech in the UK - in particular, about the detention of 3,300 people a year for publication on the Internet. We checked whether this data is confirmed.
In January 2023, more than a million views scored video clip In Tiktok, in which the British publicist and podcaster of Russian descent Konstantin Kisin claims that "last year in Russia 400 people were arrested for posts in social networks, and 3300 in Britain." Hundreds of thousands and even Millions Views received the same video in YouTube, it is also Distolled according to the blog-platforms, Twitter, Telegram And relatively small These websites. Information voiced by Kisin became the basis for published In April, an article on Life.ru, thanks to which the plot received a new breath in Facebook, "Classmates","VKontakte" Telegram. According to the TGSTAT service, in the Russian -language segment of Telegram, data voiced by Kisin regularly Used as argument In favor of the fact that in Russia the situation with freedom of speech is better than in Europe and North America.
The video distributed in social networks is genuine, this is a fragment of interview, which Kisin gave to John Anderson, the former Australian Deputy Prime Minister, and now the popular podkaster and video blogger. It is in the Anderson accounts in Tiktok And YouTube In January 2023, this episode was published. It was just that the interview was recorded back in 2019; Accordingly, the comedian allegations should actually dates back to 2018. But by all signs, the data is even more old. The only source in which the data on the UK coincides with the voiced Kisin is article Under the heading “Police for a day, nine people in the fight against web-trolls, published by the British newspaper The Times back in 2017, and the data itself dates back to 2016.
The text of the article by The Times really reports about more than 3,300 arrested residents of Great Britain, but below it is specified that we are not talking about arrest as a punishment, but about detained (Detained) and questioned (Questioned) on violation of Article 127 of the Communications Law (Communications Act, 2003). It provides for liability for letters, messages or articles containing an obscene or offensive statement or threat, as well as false information posted on the Internet or widespread using other “public communication networks”. This article provides for a punishment or in the form of a fine on the adopted standard scale up to £ 5000, or in the form of imprisonment for up to six months, or a combination of these measures.
The author of the note in The Times clarifies that the data is incomplete - some of the British police departments did not respond to the editorial request. 3395 people are a figure received from 29 territorial services (There are 45 of them). The journalist separately analyzes the reports of police departments of the two largest regions: the Greater London and the Western Midland. According to the publication, the police of the metropolitan region in 2016 detained 867 people under the above law, while noting that, despite the significant increase in the number of arrests, the number of cases entering the courts, remains stable.
In 2022, the police of London Published Detailed statistics since 2008, and it generally confirms The Times. The department separately notes that “the number of arrests is not equal to the number of detainees,” since the same person could be interrogated several times, and therefore official statistics are based on the number of so -called Custody Records - Protocols about what happened to the detainee in the police station. The data show that in 2016, under Article 127 of the Communications Law, 886 interrogations were made in police branches. But the number of cases of which the accusations were struck is more significant - in the British capital they were in total 275. Complete statistics on individual regions are not available, but the maximum number of sentences under this article is in Scotland, where guilty of violation of Article 127 in 2015-2016 Recognized up to 900 people.
In this regard, Russian statistics are also incompletely, the official calculation of cases that are instituted precisely for statements in social networks are not underway, but more than enough of the Russian Federations suitable for this in the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses (Code of Administrative Offenses) of the Russian Federation. This can be not only relatively close to the British Article 282 The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (excitement of hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity), but also articles related to extremism and terrorism, as well as "insulting the feelings of believers." The punishment depending on the composition of the offense may vary from a fine of 1000–2000 rubles. or arrest for 15 days - for example, for Demonstration forbidden symbols, up to 500,000 rubles. Fulfillment by article about insulting the feelings of believers or even up to 12 years in prison article 282.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (organization of an extremist community; for example, a group of young people in the so -called crime was accused of this crime business “New Greatness”, where the basis of the charge was a correspondence in a closed chat).
The data on the “400 people arrested for posts” in Russia, like the British, are not related by Kisin, do not date back to 2022. The figure of 411 people, on which in 2017, criminal cases were instituted for publications and reposts on the Internet in Russia, They voiced Lawyers of the Agora group. The same assessment is in the report "Roskomvoboda" - a year earlier, according to their data, cases were brought against 298 people. Human rights activists emphasize: these are the persecution that came into their field of vision, complete statistics either in criminal or administrative cases for posts in social networks.
Nobody also leads detailed statistics on administrative fines and arrests on the Internet in Russia, but the general idea of the situation can be made on the basis data Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. Among the articles of the Code of Administrative Offenses, which are often made for publications on the Internet, for example, Article 20.3 (demonstration of prohibited symbols) and Article 20.29 (public distribution of extremist materials). In 2016, under Article 20.3, 2119 cases were instituted (fines were awarded in 1754 cases, arrests in 221), and under article 20.29 - 1925 cases (fines - 1631, arrests - 43).
In any case, it is hardly possible to correlate these figures (400 and 3300) after Kisin also because Russia and Great Britain belong to different legal families. In the United Kingdom, in contrast to the countries of continental Europe, there is no criminal or administrative code in the usual understanding, and under article 127 of the British Communication Law, part of the offenses that would consider criminal offenses and those that would be considered administrative offenses fall. Because of this, it is extremely difficult to summarize and so scattered data on punishments for different compositions of offenses.
Reports of human rights activists show that the number of administrative and criminal cases for Internet publications in the Russian Federation in The latter several years only grew, and in 2022 in connection with changes in the legislation opportunity get a fine or deadline for a statement on the network Even higher. In 2022, the OVD-Info recorded at least 139 criminal cases only under the article 207.3 of the Criminal Code (knowingly false information about the Armed Forces). Also, according to the organization, at least 2000 court decisions for 2022 under article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation (discrediting the armed forces), social networks and messengers are mentioned. Project "Network Freedom" in its report reports About 779 criminal cases over the past year and about 1889 cases of administrative pressure.
The mentioned note in The Times, the report of the London police and the available data of the territorial police department of Great Britain allow us to conclude that at least in the British capital the number of arrests for the posts in social networks has not been increasing since 2016, and the number of cases transferred to the court is completely reduced. The trend towards a decrease in the number of convictions is noticeable even in Scotland, which was leading in the mid-2010s in the number of cases and sentences under article 127 of the Communications Law-the number of accusations and sentences almost doubled in 2018. In case of fines comparable in some cases, the period that can be obtained in Russia for expression on the Internet can exceed the British by 20 times depending on the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. So, five years received Elista City Hall Elista Altan Ochirov for conducting Telegram channel, by eight years in absentia Sentenced Retired police major Oleg Kashintsev for posts on Instagram and Telegram, eight years and six months of colony court appointed Ilya Yashin for a stream in YouTube dedicated events In Ukrainian Buch.
Thus, a video that spread in 2023 with the statements that over the previous year in the UK for saying on the Internet was arrested many times more people than in Russia, based on statistics for 2016. Moreover, these data are torn from the context and in general are not suitable for a correct comparison due to the difference in British and Russian legislation and law enforcement. In any case, the available information does not allow us to say that in the UK the chance to be detained or arrested for posts on social networks both in 2016 and in 2022 was any higher than in Russia. At the same time, “sitting down for repost” in the Russian Federation can be according to a number of articles, and the term of imprisonment can be much longer than in the United Kingdom, where the corresponding article is not political in nature.
Photo on the cover: Pixabay
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