Russian authorities have registered 762 extremist crimes so far this year, many of them consisting of social media posts. In some cases, the authorities make little effort to conceal that they are using the countrys broad and vague anti-extremism legislation to silence free expression.
One case is that of Daniil Markin, a 19-year-old film student from Barnaul, the main city in Russias Altai region. He is standing trial for saving several memes mocking Christianity in an album on the social media platform VKontake (VK). One morning in July last year, anti-extremism police came to Markins apartment with a search warrant, seized his electronic devices, and took him in for interrogation. One of the interrogators opened Markins VK page and showed him some of the memes he had saved to a public album. My advice for you is to come clean, the official said. We will release you and youll get off lightly.
They made Markin go through almost 1500 saved pictures and make screenshots of ten memes lampooning Christianity, including an image of the Game of Thrones actor Jon Snow portrayed as Jesus Christ with a caption Jon Snow is risen! Truly he is risen!" (a parody of the Christian Orthodox Easter refrain), and another showing a stick figure with a halo with a line crossed through it and the caption There Is No God. Urged by the investigator, Markin signed a confession to saving the memes.
Russias Federal Financial Monitoring Service supposedly designed to curb money laundering and terrorist financing then placed Markin on its watchlist and banned him from using his bank accounts.