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Newspeak How Russia blurs reality with a newspeak: “extremism”

According to the definition of propaganda, everything that contradicts Moscow's “policy” is regarded as “extremism”. Like, the actions of some radical Russians are aimed at inciting the public. Accordingly, all extremists must be punished.

There are four “extremist” articles in the Russian Criminal Code: one of which appeared in 2014 after the Russian occupation of Crimea. According to the conclusions of law enforcement agencies, Russians cannot call for separatism, that is, criticize the government or its actions. So, the Russian branch of the BBC in its material gives an example when in Odnoklassniki a Russian liked a post with the wishes of death and shame to the Russians who are going to fight in the Donbas. And a criminal case was opened against him on charges of “hatred on a national basis”. This is not the only case of combating extremism. According to statistics from Russia's Supreme Court, 693 people were convicted of extremism last year. Further, they did not explain what crimes the Russians were tried for.

Of course, the Russian authorities exaggerate their powers and regard as “extremism” almost everything that they simply do not like. Even according to the findings of the analytical centers Sova or Ahora, the actions of Russians in social networks are monitored by law enforcement agencies. For example, the administration of the social network VKontakte is actively cooperating with the investigating authorities, revealing user data, their addresses, phone numbers, time of access to the network, etc. That is, this is a deliberate restriction of freedom of speech, and by no means a protection of Russians from radical people. Russians call extremism any disagreement with the government, with its actions and deeds. Allegedly, all the actions of Russia are exclusively true and not subject to condemnation.

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