On November 11, 2013 scheduled court hearings were held on a civil case of the procurator\u2019s office against private charitable association Anti-Discrimination Centre \u201cMemorial\u201d. Procurator\u2019s office had requested that ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d should be obliged to list itself in the register of \u201cNGOs serving the functions of a foreign agent\u201d in the interests of \u201can undefined group of persons\u201d. The procurators insisted that ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d was guilty of being involved in political activities because in 2012 it had prepared human rights report \u201cRoma people, migrants, activists \u2013 victims of police arbitrariness\u201d.<\/p>\n
In order to define whether this report was indeed a \u201cpolitical action aimed at influencing public opinion with the intention of changing state policy\u201d, the procurators had asked an expert, doctor of political science V.Rukinov, to analyze the report. The latter turned out to be not only a philosopher, but also ex-head of a public organization \u201cRegional public foundation for support of Federal security service and the Service of external intelligence of the Russian Federation\u201d. This expert came to the court hearings not only not having any documents, which proved his competence, but also without written replies to the questions related to the court case. It turned out that he was not asked these questions in written form and, moreover, even when answering them orally, he was not always able to do this in an adequate manner. Thus, when answering a key question about exerting influence with the aim of changing state policy, he replied: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but I don\u2019t see any charity in this report\u201d. Replying to the questions from the defendants\u2019 lawyers Tseytlina and Serov on whether there were any calls to change constitutional order, calls that fostered hatred, approval of mass riots or claims that all police officers were violating the rights of citizens, Rukinov replied negatively, admitting that only some police officers were called offenders and that the authors of the report wanted to change some structures, but not the constitutional order of Russia as a whole.<\/p>\n
Answering a question about the methods used for analyzing the report of ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d, Rukinov replied that he used \u201ca regular method of scientific analysis\u201d and referred to some \u201ctwo laws\u201d (without specifying them) as a list of scientific sources that he had used. At the same time Rukinov claimed that the activities of ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d\u00a0 in the form of presenting a report were of openly political nature, which he \u201cdidn\u2019t like\u201d, and that the report could exert influence through some \u201cunconscious use of masses\u201d, which Marx, Freud and Fromm had written about.<\/p>\n
Following that, experts drawn by the defendants spoke before the court. Dmitry Dubrovinsky provided a socio-humanitarian expertise of the report, while Yelena Belokurova