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Medvedev's Speech Winds Up on List of Extremist Materials

A speech given in 2011 by then-President Dmitry Medvedev at an awards ceremony for special forces officers was put on the federal list of extremist materials, according to the Justice Ministry's website.

The speech was published in September 2011 in a journal called "Radical Politics. Newspaper of Russia's Anti-Imperial Committee," Gazeta.ru reported Wednesday. The entire issue was ruled to be extremist, with the president's speech specifically listed among its materials. The decision was made by the Omsk Central District Court.

The newspaper's publisher, Boris Stomakhin, was arrested in November 2012 on charges of "calling for terrorism." He had previously served four years in prison on the same charges.

The federal list of extremist materials is compiled by Russia's Justice Ministry on the basis of court rulings. As of Thursday, it contains 1,679 items, all of which are prohibited from circulation in Russia.

The list includes such materials as a book called "What is Scientology?", Jehovah's Witnesses' texts, and one of Ruhollah Khomeini's manuscripts.

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