On a direct line at the end of 2023, Putin gave direct instructions to improve legislation and law enforcement practice in the Russian Federation in order to avoid cruel punishment for non-violent crimes. And a week later, SoFed speaker Valentina Matvienko assured that work on humanizing the Criminal Code was already underway. But law enforcement agencies seem to be moving by inertia and ignoring signals from above, continuing to churn out criminal cases under Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (extortion), creating a vicious practice of interpretation, turning it into a “rubber” one.
163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on the initiative of law enforcement officers, it became a tincture that was unreasonably widely used and “stick”, so that ordinary civil law relations began to fall under it. Requirements for the transfer of property began to be understood as a request or offer, including commercial ones. Soldering irons and irons should no longer appear among the evidence; it is enough to name the cost. At a meeting with the president, the head of the Human Rights Council, Valeriy Fadeev, also stated that extortion is an article under which in the 1990s they tried bandits who used an iron and a soldering iron when committing a crime.
But in the latest cases against journalists convicted under Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, there were no irons or soldering irons. Over the past 2 years, 2022-2023, 19 criminal cases have been initiated against journalists, bloggers and PR people under Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, but now representatives of the business community have also been added. Investigators and operatives, using their powers and incorrectly interpreting Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, implemented a conveyor of similar cases, the main evidentiary tool of which was the severity of the article itself, the term for which is from 7 to 15 years. This is the secret of disclosure. It is obvious that the current vicious practice, against the backdrop of the president’s instructions and wide public outcry, requires a reaction from both the Prosecutor General’s Office and the highest court. 
“Extortion” is an article of the Criminal Code, which today gives more punishment than for murder. At the same time, bring to justice under Art. 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation can apply to an ordinary journalist, the administrator of a telegram channel, or an entrepreneur who simply provided a price list for services…
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
