Customs in Russia began to withdraw 'bad books' ordered on Amazon

A lawyer from St. Petersburg (Russia) Sergei Golubok ordered a paper copy of Masha Gessen’s book “The Future is History” from the Amazon online store. How totalitarianism conquered Russia again” and paid for the delivery of the book to Russia by DHL Express. But I was never able to get the book.

Фото: Depositphotos

The fact is that the Russian customs found the book “harmful” and confiscated it, writes the publication “Currently,".

On the evening of November 20, as soon as the book was delivered to St. Petersburg, the courier service asked Mr. Golubok to write a letter to customs, in which it was necessary to prove that the book he ordered “does not contain calls for extremism and terrorism.”

And after another five days, customs demanded that the lawyer answer whether the book contained “signs of propaganda of certain views or ideologies.”

“Letters addressed to individuals can only be opened on the basis of a court decision,” he emphasizes. “But they confiscated the book without a court decision, and I don’t know what happens to it next.” I assume that some kind of examination is being carried out, and, probably, as part of the examination, they will have to translate 550 pages from English into Russian at the expense of taxpayers.”

Until now, Sergei Golubok has never received a book.

The same book was ordered by another buyer, but already in Moscow. And he also had problems.

“As Amazon itself told me this morning, the book was detained at customs,” said lawyer Gleb Bogush. – Maybe there is information between the lines that is harmful to my morality. But, like other Russian citizens, I believe that I have the right to receive information. In accordance with international law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and so on.”

Later, Bogush said that after some time the book was delivered to him by DHL.

It turned out that the Eurasian Economic Union, which includes Russia, has banned the import of materials that could “harm the political or economic interests of the union member states” since 2015. It is under this law that books on religious or political topics are subject to additional forms of customs control. Moreover, it is the customer who must prove that the book does not contain extremism, and its content does not prevent its import into the country.

Until now, this law has not been widely applied, at least in Russia. But experts emphasize that there are already enough restrictions to tighten the import of “undesirable” books into Russia.

“There is a stupid law that introduces an age limit for reading a book. There is also the hypocrisy of libraries and bookstores, emphasizes Boris Kupriyanov, owner of the Phalanster bookstores and chairman of the Alliance of Independent Publishers and Book Distributors. – When people are afraid not even of what has already happened, but of what might happen, “no matter what happens.”

“There is also a very unpleasant law in Russia regarding the promotion of homosexuality. It’s also difficult to work with him, because who knows where there is “propaganda” of homosexuality and where there is not,” notes Kupriyanov. “But, fortunately, in Russia not all laws are enforced.”

The Eurasian Economic Union, in addition to Russia, includes Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. According to the rules of the union, it is forbidden to import literature into all these countries, which may harm not only the member states of the union, but also harm to the health and morals of their citizens. At the same time there is no list of harmful literature in the public domain.

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