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Nazi Winnie the Pooh Banned in Russia
I'll admit that I've never been to Russia, so I don't know if Pooh bears wearing Nazi flare is a serious problem but apparently the authorities think so. According to the Moscow Times:
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Winnie the Pooh share a dubious honor: Anyone who depicts either of them with a swastika can be punished under the law.
The Justice Ministry published the latest -- and biggest -- update to its list of extremist materials on its web site this week, and many of the 414 new entries are so vague or controversial that analysts say they threaten to discredit the list all together...
Among the new entries, extremist material is identified as “a picture of Winnie the Pooh wearing a swastika,” “a self-made template for a future newspaper, comic or other print materials,” and “a flag with a cross.”
This is apparently bad news because the list is intended for law enforcement to use. There's more in the article about their problem with crosses.:
The flag entry theoretically makes it an offense to produce or distribute Georgian or Swiss flags and Russian Orthodox banners, all of which have crosses on them.
Even the possession of these materials in mass quantities -- and it is up to a court is to decide how many items comprise a "mass" in each individual case -- carries the threat of punishment.
Just so you know, if you're caught with this "extremist material" you could be looking at a shelling out up to 3,000 rubles (95 bucks) and 15 days in jail at the minimal.
And as for their obsession with Pooh, the article only offers this:
The appearance of Winnie the Pooh on the list this week is not surprising given his popularity, [Natalya] Kryukova [deputy head of the Russian Institute for Cultural Research] said. Jokes about the honey-obsessed bear are plentiful and have entered modern Russian folklore after Winnie the Pooh made his Russian debut in a well-known Soviet cartoon.
Who knew?
(And thanks to Foreign Policy and @MattBastard for helping spread the news on this one.)
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