Russian court punishes school principal for book about Tatars
13 November 2024 14:27
A court in Bashkortostan has fined a school principal for possessing a book on the history of the Tatars, which was banned in Russia on charges of “inciting hatred.” This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to Radio Liberty.
In Bashkortostan, a court fined school principal Svetlana Khakimova 2000 rubles (about 850 hryvnias) for keeping the book “The Hidden History of the Tatars (National Liberation Struggle of the Tatar People in the XVI-XVIII Centuries for the Creation of an Independent State)” in the library, which tells about the struggle of the Tatar people for independence in the XVI-XVIII centuries.
The book, written by Tatar historian Vakhit Imamov, was published by the KAMAZ publishing house in 1994 in Naberezhnye Chovny and translated into 12 languages.
However, it was only in 2020 that it was put on the list of banned books in Russia. Its author Vakhit Imamov said that in 2019, a certain Reshitsky filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court of Tatarstan to include the book in the list of “extremist” materials. The expertise provided by the plaintiff stated that The Hidden History of the Tatars contains “information aimed at inciting religious or ethnic hatred, as well as calls for the separation of Tatarstan from Russia.”
The court found Khakimova guilty of “disseminating extremist materials”, although the principal had only kept the book in the school library. Imamov’s book was on a shelf accessible to students and teachers – for this reason, the court considered that it was “dissemination”.
Svetlana Khakimova did not come to court and asked to consider the case in her absence. At the request of the director, the court considered her “many years of conscientious work in the education system and significant achievements in the field of education and science of the Republic of Bashkortostan” as a mitigating circumstance. At the same time, the judge did not impose a sentence in the form of a warning, as requested by Khakimova.
This case is just one manifestation of the Russian authorities’ general policy of controlling information about the country’s ethnic groups, especially those that have historically had experience in fighting against Russian expansion.
