Tyunin’s conviction for incitement to racial enmity overturned

The Simferopol Court of Appeal has overturned the sentence passed on one of the leaders of the pro-Russian Crimean Cossack Movement, Vladimir Tyunin. As reported, in July this year a Simferopol court found him guilty of deliberately inciting ethnic and religious enmity and handed down a 2.5 year suspended sentence.  He was convicted over remarks made at a meeting organized by the Sobol Cossack Association near the place where a Muslim Mosque is to be built in the Crimean capital.

The panel of judges allowed the appeal in part. It refused to acquit Tyunin, but agreed that the examination had been one-sided and incomplete and sent it back for a new court examination.

In July it was reported that the proceedings had been initiated by the Prosecutor’s Office in Simferopol in February on charges of anti-Islamic and anti-Crimean Tatar calls at two rallies in the summer of 2010.   It is less easy to find out what exactly he said since the phrases quoted in most reports are no worse than what gets published in certain Crimean newspapers with depressing frequency.

Information about the court ruling from here