Issue 4 (14) 2011

23 CRIMINAL SECTARIANISM: CRIMINALIZATION AND PUNISHABILITY PROBLEMS

CRIMINAL SECTARIANISM: CRIMINALIZATION AND PUNISHABILITY PROBLEMS

S.V. Rozenko

Yugra State University
628012, Khanty-Mansiysk, Chekhov's street, 16
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The article is dedicated to the analysis of active Russian criminal legislation, which is directed to counteraction with criminal sects, and solving some jurisrical problems in the process of criminalisation and punishment of totalitarian sects.

There are the main points of international acts and Russian Federation Constitution in the article, proclaiming freedom of conscience and religion as the main rights, which determine the religious freedom of a person. By the way, there are also some exceptions, connectsd with legally maintained necessarity of guarding security, order, health and morality as the main rights of other people. There is also a prohibition for associations, whose aims and activities are directed to develpment of social, racial, national and religious discord.

The historically formed tradition of sects criminalisation in Russia, its validity, necessarity and the main features are considered in the ressearch.The special circumstances of juristical counteraction with criminal sects in USSR are also noted in the ressearch. First, from 30 till 50 years of the 20th century sectarianism was persecuted as a political (counterrevolutional) crime against the USSR State. Second, there was an article in Criminal Codex of USSR in 1960, anticipating responsibility for religious sectarianism as an organised form of criminality, directed against security, order and health of population. Third, the responsibility for group criminal activity, participation as an accessory or leadership of such a group was also anticipated.

The characteristics of socially dangerous sectarians activity, directed to the interests of security, morality, rights and freedom of citizens, their health and property is analysed in the article. Nowadays Russian criminally-juristical approach in this sphere is characterized only by interference of the state.

There are also some ideas of improving the article 239 of Russian Federation Criminal Codex according to the institution of complicity, especially inclusion in disposition with the point, that the activity of the association threatens with violence and causation of harm to the citizen.

Keywords: criminal sectarianism; totalitarian sects; criminalization; punishability

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