Speaking at a meeting dedicated to the work of law enforcement agencies in the North Caucasian Federal District, Prosecutor General Deputy Ivan Sydoruk said that the number of attacks in the region was up 100 percent in 2010.

The rise comes despite 30 counter-terrorism operations carried out in the North Caucasus in 2010, in which more than 300 militants, including 17 prominent leaders, were neutralized. In addition, police had confiscated 1,665 firearms, 91846 rounds of ammunition, more than 1200 kilograms of explosives and more than 110 explosive devices from weapons trafficking circles.

The admission by the prosecutor general’s office follows conflicting statements by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and leaders in Chechnya and Ingushetia over the success of counter-terrorism operations in the North Caucasus.

During a November 19 meeting on comprehensive measures to ensure stability in the volatile region, President Medvedev said that information presented to him indicating an improvement in the criminal situation was “nonsense.” “I have no faith in these statistics, they’re often nonsense,” said the president. He also said that the operative situation in the Caucasus “has practically not improved.”

In response, Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov issued a joint statement saying that President Medvedev was incorrect.

“The president said that it was ‘nonsense.’ But it’s clear to us that that’s not the case,” said Yevkurov. In an interview with Interfax, Kadyrov said he could not rule out the possibility that militants had been eradicated from Chechnya altogether.

In his turn, Russian Internal Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said last week that the number of terrorist threats in Russia remains high.

Renowned rights advocate Lyudmila Alexeyeva and opposition leaders Eduard Limonov and Konstantin Kosyakin, whose Strategy 31 rallies are held on the 31st of every month in defense of the freedom of assembly guaranteed by the 31st article of the constitution, said in a letter to the Prosecutor that their efforts to avoid conflict while maintaining their constitutional rights during their March 31 rally went unheeded by the city administration. Specifically, the organizers stressed that they had sent the mayor a letter on February 24 asking him to recommend that other events planned for the same time and location be moved to avoid any overlap.

Even though the mayor’s office knew that the Strategy 31 protest was going to be held despite a lack of official sanction, they chose not to inform the organizers that their traditional place of protest, on their traditional date, and at their traditional time was going to be occupied by their ideological opponents, said the activists. As it turned out, approximately three thousand pro-Kremlin youth activists held a dance party rally against terrorism alongside the Strategy 31 protesters that day. While no violent clashes between the two groups broke out, the oppositionists were very concerned at the heightened tension that the mayor’s office allowed to result.

“It gives the impression that the mayor’s office intentionally provoked a clash between our followers – peaceful citizens who came to defend their right to the freedom of assembly, and youth organizations known for their nasty reputation,” says the letter. On that basis, the organizers asked the Prosecutor General to investigate the activities of the mayor’s office.

Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has had expressed conflicting thoughts about the Strategy 31 rallies.

Alexeyeva, Limonov, and Kosyakin have also appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in connection with the fact that the Moscow city authorities have refused to sanction a single one of the Strategy 31 rallies since their inception last May. Furthermore, each of the rallies has resulted in scores of protesters being beaten and detained by police. International rights organizations, the Council of Europe, and United States government have criticized the Russian authorities for failing to observe the right to free assembly and using excessive force against the Strategy 31 participants.

The decision was first instigated by a check by a local transportation prosecutor on materials mailed from the United States to the Siberian city of Surgut, which has been a site of conflict between Scientologists and the Russian authorities in the past. A variety of audio and video recordings and books by L. Ron Hubbard were discovered among the materials, and the prosecutor’s office ordered their confiscation for psycholinguistic analysis.

According to today’s press release on the Prosecutor General’s website, experts concluded that Hubbard’s include both direct and veiled calls to instigate social strife, to rise up against state agencies (the judiciary and law enforcement in particular), and to commit violence motivated by ideological and religious hatred.

“Specialists in the fields of psychiatry, psychology and sociology concluded that the materials presented for analysis are not acceptable to distribute, as they undermine the traditional spiritual basis of the lives of citizens of the Russian Federation,” said the press release.

Russian law dictates that materials deemed extremist must be included in the federal list of extremist materials that are banned from distribution on Russian territory.

While it isn’t entirely clear how many Russian citizens adhere to the Church of Scientology, the government has been aggressive in attempts to ban the organization. Most of the time it has been shot down by the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled in September 2009 that two Scientology branches in Surgut and Nizhnekamsk could not be denied registration as religious organizations. The Russian government was forced to pay a 20 thousand Euro fine and was prohibited outright from banning the Church of Scientology.

Given that Scientology is controversial in countries around the world, Russia’s ban on Hubbard’s works may bring more attention to Russia’s questionable methods for determining just what constitutes extremism. Opposition activists and human rights groups have repeatedly suffered from accusations of extremism, and argue that the definition as given by law is so vague that it allows state agencies to effectively ban whatever groups they deem to be undesirable. In particular, the Russian Internal Ministry’s notorious Center for Extremism Prevention, commonly referred to as Center “E,” has been criticized by oppositionists and rights groups worldwide of torturing detainees and conspiring to hinder lawful acts of political protest.

Yury Kladov, a Rechnik resident and village representative, made the accusation at a press conference held on Friday by the federal land registration service, Rosreestr. He claimed that part of the documents needed to legally register the houses, thus theoretically annulling a court order to demolish them, were stolen by government authorities when the residents had filed them. Other necessary documents have been locked in state archives that residents have no access to, he said.

Kladov stressed that civil servants were free to access the documents.

Rosreestr deputy manager Galina Yelizarova rebutted by saying that none of the 80 rejected registrations filed by Rechnik residents in the past three years have been contested in court. Her colleague, Vadim Andropov, added that this was because the residents know they lack the necessary documents to register the homes – seeming to imply that such documents did not exist, as opposed to residents’ claims that the documents are being withheld by the state.

Kladov countered that Rechnik residents lacked faith that the courts would be a viable avenue to obtain registration for their homes, and would do nothing more than postpone the inevitable demolitions.

Moscow city authorities began demolishing buildings in Rechnik on January 21, after a court order deemed the buildings to have been illegally built. Residents maintain that the village was supposed to have fallen under a “dacha amnesty” program that legalized all of the villages similar to theirs, and point to neighboring estates featuring luxury villas as evidence that the city just wants to drive them out to develop the land.

Two weeks later, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev ordered the Prosecutor General to investigate the legality of the buildings, and demolitions were temporarily suspended. By that time, however, several dozen had already been razed. Residents, meanwhile, have attempted to gain refugee status in Germany and the United States, and began claiming genocide after 12 elderly residents died from the stress of losing their homes.

A source in law enforcement told RIA Novosti that police had detained the approximately 26-year old Muscovite after a call from a neighbor complaining of hooliganism in a building on Samarkandsky Boulevard in Moscow. Although the incident occurred on the evening of December 5, the source did not report the incident until Tuesday.

When an officer arrived at the building, a man holding a crossbow opened the door and promised to “fire everyone.”

According to the press release, the man shot the officer with the crossbow at least once before he could be detained.

Upon search, the officer found documents identifying the man as an employee of the Moscow prosecutor’s office. The prosecutor’s office denies that the man is an employee. His name is currently being withheld.

The confiscated crossbow was found to be a piece of evidence in an unrelated criminal suit.

In light of a recently renewed wave of criticism on Russia’s law enforcement agencies, the possibility of abolishing the police force and starting from scratch has become a prominent topic of discussion in the Russian media. State Duma Deputy Andrei Makarov said as much at a recent press conference, and a movement to reform the Interior Ministry by former police major Aleksei Dymovsky has gained unprecedented media attention and support across the country.

As the Interfax news agency reports, Moscow city prosecutors have filed a motion with the Basmanny regional court after finding that an episode of the show broadcast in January “bore signs of extremist activity.” Simultaneously, the channel that broadcasts the award-winning American cartoon, 2×2, has been issued a warning for disseminating extremist materials.

An investigation conducted by prosecutors found fault with an episode titled “Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Special,” which went on air on January 9th. Experts found that the show “humiliates the honor and dignity of Christians and Muslims, offends the feeling of believers regardless of their denomination, and can provoke interethnic conflict, up to and including extremist acts.”

The report was instigated under a controversial 2006 law, which broadened the definition of extremism. Government critics have said the law allows the state to easily limit freedom of speech. Since its inception, it has been used to target non-profit organizations, online newspapers, bloggers, and even a hobbyist who rebuilds World War II era tanks.

South Park, which debuted in 1997, has continually been at the center of controversy in the US over its coverage of adult themes, including racism, religion, and celebrity culture. In Russia, a dubbed version of the show has ignited angry protest from religious groups. In March, the heads of protestant churches in Russia appealed to Yury Chaika, the country’s prosecutor-general, to repeal 2×2’s broadcast license.

The Prosecutor-General’s Office has now apparently heeded the call to reprimand 2×2, which broadcasts primarily animated content in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Office filed a presentation today to Rossvyazokhrankultura, the nation’s media regulating body, after concluding that 2×2 repeatedly broadcast material that broke a law meant to protect children.

A panel of experts examined the 12 animated series shown on the channel, including 118 films. Among them are the Simpsons, Family Guy (translated into Russian as the Griffins), Metalocalypse, Drawn Together (translated into Russian as Multreality), Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl, Angry Kid, and others.

The experts found that the cartoons do not correspond to the legal requirements for protecting children’s moral and mental development and protecting their health. The cartoons “promote violence and cruelty, pornography, anti-social behavior, abound with scenes of mayhem, the infliction of physical and ethical suffering, and are aimed at invoking fear, panic and terror in children,” the Office said in a statement (Rus).

“Practically all the cartoons exploit the topic of suicide, and characters demonstrate readiness to risk their lives for the sake of deriving extreme sensations.”

A representative of 2×2 could not be immediately reached for comment.

“Every year, as result of overt flaws in the work of investigative authorities, the amount of persons unlawfully put on trial numbers in the thousands,” he said, speaking before an meeting of high-ranking legal and security officials. Thus, 5265 people were fully exonerated of charges wrongly filed against them in 2007.

“It’s self-evident that the reason for this lies in negligent investigation of criminal cases, instituted without sufficient grounds, while charges are often based only on testimonies of witnesses,” Chaika continued.

As the Prosecutor General explained, illegal prosecutions are costing the country millions of rubles. In 2007, in just 32 regions, some 94 million rubles ($4.08 or €2.59 million) were paid from the federal budget to claimants seeking compensation from the government for unlawful imprisonment and prosecution. “If we take Russia as a whole, the figure will be higher by an order,” Chaika said. Additionally, the European Court of Human Rights deemed that 4.3 million euros must be paid back in Russia for similar compensation lawsuits in 2007.

To combat the problem, Chaika said that prosecutors and investigators “must be held responsible” for unprofessional behavior and mistakes. He also explained that the authorities responsible for false prosecutions must be made to apologize.

“Violations in this sphere may entail the greatest harm to a man’s destiny,” he noted.

The greatest number of punitive measures are directed at the internet, and the Prosecutor General’s Office has prepared a number of draft amendments to the current law against extremism. According to the draft legislation, if any kind of material, or any site, is deemed extremist by a court, access to the material must quickly be blocked. Any website found guilty of repeatedly hosting extremist materials will be shut down. A list of extremist internet-materials and sites must be regularly published, and internet providers will be obligated to stop hosting these sites within one month.

A draft law for regulating the internet began circulating in the State Duma’s Security Committee on April 10th. The law sets norms for how to classify extremism on the internet:

“Materials located on Internet websites are recognized as extremist by a federal court upon discovery, or by finding the individual or organization who posted them [guilty], on authority a prosecutor’s notice or by a corresponding [court case].”

Critics believe that defining what constitutes “extremism” presents a slippery slope, and may give authorities a new lever for censoring politically unpopular information. In recent months, similar laws against “extremism” have been used to shut down and raid the offices of human rights groups and NGOs operating in Russia.

Some lawmakers were uncertain that curbing information on the internet was even technologically feasible. “We tighten the screws and the situation only gets worse,” said Gennady Gudkov, the deputy chairman of the State Duma Security Committee. Others critics believe that law enforcement agencies already have the means to shut down internet providers, and pointed at an April 4th incident, when St. Petersburg prosecutors ordered the closure of 10 internet providers for hosting extremist content.

Kommersant notes that Alexander Torshin, the vice-speaker of the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house, has already issued strong complaints against the world-wide web. According to Torshin, the role of the internet “as a means of terror propaganda” has grown to such an extent, that it is “not without reason that it’s called the academy of terrorism.” Terrorists apparently “spread information freely,” “practically propagandize their ideas in the open, recruiting new adherents, buying up weapons and munitions, [and] communicating with one another.” The senator was adamant that lawmakers need “to work out unified identifying criteria for terrorist websites, formulate techniques to expose them and constantly monitor their activities, nationally and internationally, and also [work out] the means to close these sites.”

Aleksey Zhafyarov, the deputy head of Directorate to supervise enforcement of laws on federal security, interethnic relations and countering extremism was frank with the agency:

“We have a paradoxical situation on our hands: there is a whole group of companies that maintain the internet and derive a profit, yet take no responsibility for the impact on society of the content they host.”

The Prosecutor’s Office proposes that law-makers clearly delineate “what is unacceptable on the internet in terms of public morality, public safety… and anti-extremist legislation.” Since determining the author of online content is frequently impossible, the agency also calls on law-makers to “place responsibility for the dissemination of any such materials on those who furnish space for it.”

“We are speaking about the self-controlling of the providers and telecommunications companies,” Zhafyarov continued. “Of course, the question of which information is permissible and impermissible in each concrete case must be determined by a court decision. But now, it is nearly impossible to adopt a ruling, since there are no specific laws which would let us put the question of blocking access to information, or recognizing information as extremist before a court.”

Critics of the proposal are worried that opposition blogs and websites may branded “extremist” and summarily shut down, a tactic that has been used offline against non-governmental organizations.

The Prosecutor General’s proposal isn’t the first law connected with regulating the internet to be filed this year. In January, Russia’s Parliament began work on a law “On the Internet,” which would create a legal framework for dealing with all online matters. In February, Vladimir Slutsker, a Federation Council delegate, introduced legislation that would force all internet sites with more than a thousand daily visitors to register as mass-media outlets. A third project currently in the State Duma would put limits on foreign investment in the telecommunications and internet industries.