SAVVA TERENTYEV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 13 THE LAW I. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 10 OF THE CONVENTION 41. The applicant complained that his criminal conviction for a comment on the Internet had violated his right to freedom of expression, as provided in Article 10 of the Convention, which reads as follows: “1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers... 2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others...” A. Submissions by the parties 1. The applicant 42. The applicant argued that his conviction had constituted an unjustified interference with his right to freedom of expression. In particular, in the applicant’s view, the interference in question could not be said to have been “prescribed by law”, as it had been the result of an unforeseeable application of Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code. He insisted that the said Article had been designed to protect national, racial, linguistic and religious minorities as well as representatives of the most vulnerable social groups, such as, for instance, homosexuals, and that extending its provisions to encompass the police as a social group had amounted to an abusive application of that Article and went beyond what may have reasonably be expected. According to the applicant, his criminal prosecution had been one of the first cases where the notion “social group” had been interpreted by the domestic courts as including civil servants. 43. He also argued that his criminal prosecution and conviction under the above-mentioned provision had been the result of its selective and arbitrary application, as a number of public figures, such as famous Russian pop-musicians, who at the relevant period had publicly performed songs with much more explicit and offensive texts regarding the police, had never been prosecuted under that provision. 44. The applicant further argued that the interference complained of was not “necessary in a democratic society”. He insisted, in particular, that his comment had been directed against dishonest and corrupt police officers whom he had called “infidel cops” in his text and had not targeted all Russian police officers. He pointed out that there had been valid grounds for