On May 25, a panel discussion titled “Beyond ‘objective knowledge’: ethics, law and society in post-Soviet countries through the lens of special expert testimony” was held in St. Petersburg. The panel was dedicated to the established practices of different states and legal systems in handling cases connected to the incitement of inter-ethnic hatred and extremism. Researchers from different countries spoke on how expert testimony is handled in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Poland, and Great Britain. At the end, the participants discussed the role which independent expertise should play in such court cases.

The Ukrainian situation was covered by Euro-Asian Jewish Congress expert Vyacheslav Likhachev. In his talk he noted Ukraine’s unique situation: Ukraine is the only post-Soviet country represented at the panel where there are no “anti-extremism” laws and where counteraction of “hate speech” has not turned into a tool used by an authoritarian regime to suppress the political opposition and any other dissenters. Particularly, of course, this is because Ukraine does not have an authoritarian regime. However, this also means that even very obvious and focused attempts to actually incite hatred go unpunished in practice.

The panel discussion was part of the International Conference “Beyond the...” organized by the Center of Independent Social Research (CISR), which is one of the leading Russian scholarly organizations in their field.