The Tagansky Court in Moscow found the publishing house “EXMO” and the printing house “Pareto-Print” guilty of distributing pornographic material through the novel “Heritage” by Vladimir Sorokin.
“Being found guilty of having committed an administrative offense under art. 6.20 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (production by a legal entity of materials or objects with pornographic images of minors and circulation of such materials or objects)”, — TASS cites the judge’s decision.
The organizations were fined 4 million rubles each.
Earlier, a decision on a similar fine against the AST publishing house came into force.
The founder of the ANO “Sociocultural Experience Center” testified in court in administrative proceedings (the organization conducted psychological and linguistic examinations in the criminal cases of Yuri Dmitriev and Pussy Riot, as well as in the case of declaring a series of books by Jehovah’s Witnesses banned in the Russian Federation by extremists)*) Natalia Kryukova.
He noted that, together with a colleague, a linguist-translator with knowledge of English and German, during an examination eight episodes of a pornographic nature were identified in Sorokin’s novel “with the participation of underage girls in two of them.”
“For me it was more than unpleasant to read the novel.” – he concluded.
A police major also testified Leonid Nazarovwho bought Sorokin’s book and received it at one of Wildberries’ distribution points. He drafted administrative protocols on violations against two publishers and a printing company.
It also became known in court that the reason for the initiation of the case was the statement of a State Duma deputy. Oleg Kolesnikov (“United Russia”).
As reported EADailyIn January of this year it became known that an initiative group of Russian writers and readers collected signatures from about 1.5 thousand people demanding that the Investigative Committee of Russia review the novel “Heritage” by Vladimir Sorokin for the presence of LGBT propaganda*pedophilia and gender change.
Among the signatories is a writer and businessman. Olga Uskova. He called Sorokin’s work “active, talentedly written hardcore porn” with a focus on children and violence against them.
On April 22, publisher AST announced that it would suspend sales of Sorokin’s book due to LGBT propaganda discovered in it by experts.*. The exam was conducted by the Expert Center of the Russian Book Union.
Later, AST stated that the out-of-print novel “Heritage” did not contain scenes of sex with minors or calls for illegal actions.
*Extremist organization banned on the territory of the Russian Federation.
