The prohibition of Islamic books for the purpose of suppressing religious extremism is not necessary in a democratic society and violates the freedom of expression.
JUDGMENT
Ιbragim Ibragimov and others v. Russia 28-08-2018 (no. 1413/08 and 28621/11)
SUMMARY
Islamic Religious books. Prohibition of keeping books in circulation under a law on the suppression of extremism. The texts were not aggressive, offensive or defamatory to non-Muslims, nor did they amount to incitement to hatred. Violation of freedom of expression.
PROVISION
Article 10
PRINCIPAL FACTS
The applicants are Salekh Ogly Ibragimov, a Russian national; the Cultural Educational Fund “Nuru Badi”, a publisher based in Moscow; and, the United Religious Board of Muslims of the Krasnoyarsk Region, a religious association. Mr Ibragimov is the chief executive officer of the second applicant.
The case involved two sets of civil proceedings brought by the prosecuting authorities regarding books written by Said Nursi.
The first set of proceedings was brought in 2006 asking that books from Nursi’s Risale-I Nur collection, written in the first half of the 20th century, be declared extremist and banned. The second applicant is a publisher of this collection.
The second set of proceedings was brought in 2008, asking the courts to rule that one of Nursi’s books from the Risale-I Nur collection, namely The Tenth Word: The Resurrection and the Hereafter, be declared extremist and to confiscate all printed copies. Just before this, the third applicant had commissioned a publisher to print this particular Nursi book.
The applicant publisher and religious association were invited to participate in these proceedings as third parties, and submitted information explaining that Said Nursi’s texts belonged to moderate, mainstream Islam.
In both resulting judgments, delivered in 2007 and 2010, the courts ruled however that the books at issue were extremist. They found in particular, under the Suppression of Extremism Act of 2002, that the books incited religious discord and constituted propaganda on the superiority of the Muslim faith. In coming to their decisions, the courts relied on expert reports ordered by the court or submitted by the prosecutor. The reports had been written by specialists in linguistics, philology, psychology and philosophy.
In the first set of proceedings the courts referred in particular to the overall findings in expert reports of February and May 2007, agreeing with the specialists that the books contained “humiliating depictions, an unfavourable assessment and a negative evaluation of persons on the basis of their attitude to religion”. The courts rejected all evidence submitted by Mr Ibragimov and the applicant publisher, including the opinions of Muslim authorities and Islamic scholars, because they were neither linguists nor psychologists and were not therefore competent to establish the meaning of the texts.
Similarly, in the second set of proceedings the courts generally endorsed a specialists’ report of December 2008 finding that the book at issue was extremist and used military metaphors to instil in the reader’s mind the idea of an enemy and potential military action. They also quoted several expressions in the book describing Muslims as “the faithful” and “the just”, while everyone else was “the dissolute”, “the philosophers”, “the idle talkers” and “little men”, and proclaiming that not being a Muslim was an “infinitely big crime”.
The applicants’ appeals were all subsequently rejected.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT
First, the Court noted that the courts’ decisions on the books which the applicants had published or commissioned for publication, finding them “extremist” and banning them from publication and distribution, had amounted to “interference by a public authority” with their right to freedom of expression, interpreted in the light of their right to freedom of religion. That interference had had a basis in national law, namely the Suppression of Extremism Act, and had aimed at preventing disorder and protecting territorial integrity, public safety and the rights of others.
However, it found that, overall, the Russian courts had failed to justify why it had been necessary to ban the books, which had first been published in Russia in 2000, that is seven years before being banned, without them ever having caused interreligious tensions, let alone violence. They had also been translated into about 50 languages, and were widely available in many countries without problem.
It went on to examine the domestic court decisions in both sets of proceedings, and found that they had a number of shortcomings.
In the first set of proceedings concerning the Risale-I Nur collection, the courts had merely endorsed the experts’ conclusions, without making their own assessment. They had not specified which passages of the books had been problematic, and had only referred to the overall findings of the experts’ report. Moreover, the report had gone far beyond language or psychology issues and had provided, in essence, a legal classification of the texts. The Court stressed that all legal matters should be resolved exclusively by the courts.
Nor did the courts discuss the necessity of banning the books, bearing in mind the context in which they had been published, their nature and wording and their potential to lead to harmful consequences.
Moreover, the applicants had been unable to contest the expert reports. The courts had summarily rejected all evidence they had submitted, including the opinions of Muslim authorities and Islamic scholars who had explained the historical context in which the books had been written and the fact that they belonged to moderate rather than radical Islam, their importance for the Russian Muslim community and their general message of tolerance, interreligious cooperation and opposition to violence. Indeed, this material had simply been disregarded because the authors had not been linguists or psychologists.
While the proceedings concerning the book The Tenth Word: The Resurrection and the Hereafter, also from the Risale-I Nur collection, had essentially the same shortcomings, the Court noted that the courts had nonetheless quoted several expressions which they considered problematic because they had promoted the idea that it was better to be a Muslim than a non-Muslim and had used military metaphors.
However, the courts had not assessed those expressions in context. They had failed to take into account that it was common in religious texts for a religion to claim that it was superior to other religions. Importantly, the texts in question had not been abusive towards non-Muslims, and had neither insulted nor slandered them. Besides, it was not reasonable for religious groups to expect that they would never be criticised.
Nor had the use of military metaphors been set in context. In fact, the courts had simply endorsed the specialists’ findings, without even quoting any examples. The use of such metaphors was therefore not enough to consider that the texts had amounted to hate speech or calls to violence.
Similarly, the mere fact that the author’s intention had been to convince readers to adopt his religious beliefs was insufficient to justify banning the book.
The Court therefore concluded that it had not been necessary, in a democratic society, to ban the books in question, in violation of Article 10.
Just satisfaction (Article 41)
The Court held that Russia was to pay Mr Ibragimov 7,500 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage (echrcaselaw.com editing).
