Natalia Sharina, former director of the State Library of the City of Moscow "Library of Ukrainian Literature", was sentenced to four years in prison for distributing extremist literature and spending public funds. Supervising activities of libraries officials say that the director had to remove from the shelves and destroy books on the federal list of extremist materials. However, Mrs. Sharina intends to challenge the verdict, arguing that she "did not take extremist actions."

Meshchansky court in Moscow yesterday found guilty Natalia Sharin on articles "Raising national hatred or enmity with the use of official position" (item "b" part 2 of article 282 of the Criminal Code) and "embezzlement in a large and very large amount" (Part 3 -4 Article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Recall that in 2015 during a search in the state institution found the literature, which, as experts determined, contained extremist statements, including the book of Ukrainian writer Dmitry Korchinsky (included in the list of extremist materials in 2013). Also, the court established, Mrs. Sharina spent the library's resources on her defense in court, and later hired two lawyers who received salaries but did not work.

The court sentenced Natalya Sharin to four years' suspended probation with a probation period of four years. At the time of punishment, the time spent by Mrs. Sharina under house arrest will be counted: from October 29, 2015 to June 5, 2017.

"The court simply rewrote the indictment, with the same mistakes, and rejected the arguments of the defense without a detailed analysis," the lawyer of Mrs. Sharina Ivan Pavlov told Kommersant. The defense party intends to appeal the decision. "The verdict is incomprehensible to me," said Natalya Sharina.- "Extremism is a certain act." During the proceedings, none of the witnesses and the state prosecutor reported what actions I had taken. "

For example, during the hearings, Ms. Sharina repeatedly stated: it is not the responsibility of library staff to study and censor books. Nevertheless, in 2010, all suspicious books, none of which were on the federal list of extremist materials at that time, were removed, according to the ex-director, from the shelves in the halls accessible to the reader, to the internal premises and, moreover, Were placed in a closet with a lock. However, the state prosecutor said that readers had access to these books.

Director General of the Moscow Directorate for the Development of Cultural Centers (founder of the Department of Culture of the City of Moscow, oversees the work of city libraries) Maria Rogacheva explained to Kommersant how Natalya Sharina should act: "If a banned publication is found, the library should notify us as a managing organization about the measures taken and Exclude extremist literature from the fund. " According to her, in each library there is a recruiting department that checks the books stored in the library's funds with a federal list of extremist materials posted on the website of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. The director makes a decision to exclude publications from the fund on the basis of the law "On Countering Extremist Activity." "Books, which for one reason or another are not needed by the library, can be passed on to citizens, with the exception of extremist literature, of course, its director can write off: put it on waste paper or dispose of it," said Maria Rogacheva. She stressed that during the work of the Directorate - since 2015 - information about the presence of banned literature in Moscow libraries has not been received.

At the moment, the Library of Ukrainian literature, founded in 2000, is being reorganized, Kommersant was told in the department of the national policy of Moscow. "The book collections of the library will move to the Center for Slavic Cultures, created under the All-Russian State Library of Foreign Literature." There is no policy in this, "the department noted. The representative of the department assured that the move was conceived for the convenience of readers: "Nobody is going to destroy Ukrainian literature."