On 25 December 2008, Presnenskiy district court of Moscow made a ruling to recognize the content of the flier disseminated at the protest action on 11 February 2008 in Moscow-located “Khudojestvenny” cinema as extremist. The action was held while screening a movie entitled “Kiss not Meant for Media” based upon details from private life of Vladimir Putin. The ruling is based upon conclusions of the expertise conducted by specialists of Russian Institute of Culture Studies. They confirmed that there are signs of libel of a state official in the flier as well as it stirs up to actions aimed at violent changing of the constitutional order and breaking integrity of the Russian Federation, public disorder and hooliganism on the motives of ideological and political animosity. The expertise having being concluded, the Presnja inter-district prosecutor’s office of Moscow lodged a demand to declare the content of the flier extremist. The court satisfied this demand in full. The text of the flier follows.

You have come to power by means of bloody crimes. Your accomplices blew up apartment houses with peaceful people in Moscow and other cities of Russia, waged a war in Chechnya and brought you to power by manipulating patriotic feelings of people.

Having become the head of the state, you eliminated all political and civil freedoms of Russia, destroyed its federative structure and established the regime of your personal dictatorship.

Your accomplices have murdered those who were trying to disentangle the ball of your crimes, including journalists Schekochikhin and Politkovskaja, the State Duma deputy Yuschenkov, the ex-FSB officer Litvinenko and dozens of other people.

Mass killings of peaceful people, including children, during Dubrovka theater siege and Beslan are on your conscience. Under your rule real terror has been unleashed against political opposition, including the Party of National Bolsheviks and the Other Russia coalition. You have untied hands to the murderers of natzbol Yury Chervochkin.

You staged fake elections in order to secure power to you and your friends, accomplices to your crimes.
This is your actual political biography which has nothing to do with the one that mercenaryjournalists, political analysts and directors are imposing upon people day by day.

You are not a tsar and we are not your slaves. We are free citizens of Russia. We demand that you resign from power. Immediately! We don’t want you to become either the president, or prime minister or a “national leader”. The best what you can do is to take of monastic vows, and repent your sins.

As you can see, the flier doesn’t call on people to take any measures. It just expresses natzbols’ desire not to deal with Vladimir Putin in whatever capacity, either of Prime Minister, president or a national leader. The best advice that they feel like giving him is to repent his sins in solitude of monastery. Thus, the only “call” of the flier is actually a recommendation to Vladimir Putin.

In October 2008, Andrey Nikitin, one of the participants of the protest action in the Khudojestvenny cinema, got one year suspended sentence with two-year probation term under Article 282.2 part 2 of the Russian Penal Code (membership in a public organization on which the court ban is enforced with regard to its involvement in activities of extremist character).

The “Kiss not Meant for Media” was screened only once on 11 February 2008. Screening was closed for the public, though.

The premier was attended by business circles, politicians, including some members of the Russian government and deputies of the State Duma. In the middle of the screening was interrupted by shouts, “Putin is the executioner of Beslan!”, “Putin is the executioner of freedom”, “Freedom to political prisoners!”

Apart from that, two young people, a man and a woman, disseminated fliers and unrolled the slogan saying “Putin is a criminal” which covered the projector.

The audience burst out applauding. However, in a few minutes both participants, Jana Hubaeva and Andrey Nikitin (both aged 20) were detained. Criminal proceedings under Article 282.2 part 2 were initiated against Nikitin. Both participants were also found guilty of minor misdemeanor (hooliganism) under Article 20.1 of the Russian Administrative Code.

Andrej Nikitin stated in his last statement, “My formation as a person have coincided with the time when Vladimir Putin was the President of Russia. I have been a witness to how his anti-national, anti-Russian policy was being implemented under pseudo-patriotic rhetoric. Thus, during the term of Putin presidency Moscow apartment buildings were exploded and the criminal war in Chechnya was waged. These are the bloody crimes that have brought Putin to power. His rule is characterized with curtailing of political rights and freedoms, widening the gap between the rich and the poor, suppression of freedom of speech, such horrible events as mass casualties of people in Nord-Ost, Beslan, “Kursk” submarine, politically motivated killings of people the Kremlin was discontent with (Politkovskaja and Litvinenko), harsh reprisals against opposition forces, and murders of some of opposition people like it happened to Jury Chervochkin on 22 November 2008 when an assault at him resulted in his death a month after…As for the content of the flier which I wrote, nobody showed me the part which really contains any appeals. I am stating my attitude towards the perpetrated crimes, against tyranny, against falsehood, and finally, against the extremism of the authorities!”

It is important to mention that the Nikitin and Khubaeva managed to get into the cinema to attend the screening in an absolutely legitimate way. Although the screening was not public, they had obtained entry tickets as a reward to the victory in a literary tournament announced in the Internet by one of Moscow cinema clubs. The task was to find a role for Vladimir Putin in any of well-known movies. The text should not have been longer than 10 or 12 sentences.

The information is disseminated as an attempt to draw attention to the case of Andrej Nikitin and Jana Khubaeva. They might find themselves in a bigger danger after the court ruling is enforced. It is now in their plans to appeal the verdict.