The Murmansk Procurator Turned Down the Criminal Case of an Advertising Poster with a Nationalist Tone In June, 2007, the procurator of Pervomaiskiy region (Murmansk) refused to accept the criminal case regarding a poster for the club “Gulfstream” that was put up on the event of Victory Day on a public transportation stop, inviting people to the disco “Night of Victory”, with the sub-text "People from the Baltic and Poles don’t bother”.* The statement was made by a resident of Murmansk to the procurator, with an attached photo of the poster, with a request to carry out an investigation related to “inciting ethnic hatred”. The resident had noticed the poster on the bus stop “Bering Street”. According to the answer received by the plaintiff, in the course of the investigation the director and art-director of the club were questioned, and their response was the sub-text "People from the Baltic and Poles don’t bother”* (according to the art-director D. Kuntov) was intended to “calm people who could be from the Baltic or Poland to take part in the disco that no excesses or misunderstandings would occur”. After this, the director did not agree with the image of the poster, and the copies made by the art-director were supposedly thrown out by him. How a thrown out poster made it to the bus stop “Bering Street”, club directors were not able to explain. Not having seen any attributes of a crime in the actions of the club management, the Office of Public Prosecutor refused to pursue the case. *The word originally used in the text has multiple meanings in Russian: worry, trouble or bother. Source: SOVA Center
The Murmansk Procurator Turned Down the Criminal Case of an Advertising Poster with a Nationalist Tone
The statement was made by a resident of Murmansk to the procurator, with an attached photo of the poster, with a request to carry out an investigation related to “inciting ethnic hatred”. The resident had noticed the poster on the bus stop “Bering Street”.
According to the answer received by the plaintiff, in the course of the investigation the director and art-director of the club were questioned, and their response was the sub-text "People from the Baltic and Poles don’t bother”* (according to the art-director D. Kuntov) was intended to “calm people who could be from the Baltic or Poland to take part in the disco that no excesses or misunderstandings would occur”. After this, the director did not agree with the image of the poster, and the copies made by the art-director were supposedly thrown out by him. How a thrown out poster made it to the bus stop “Bering Street”, club directors were not able to explain.
Not having seen any attributes of a crime in the actions of the club management, the Office of Public Prosecutor refused to pursue the case.
*The word originally used in the text has multiple meanings in Russian: worry, trouble or bother.
Source: SOVA Center
