StopXam (), also spelled StopHam and known as Stop a Douchebag, is a Russian non-profit organization, headquartered in Moscow and founded in 2010 by members of the youth movement Nashi, which opposes traffic rule violations and arrogance on the road. The mode of operation of the activists is to film offenses and their conversations and confrontations with offenders and subsequently edit and upload the gathered footage to video-sharing websites such as YouTube. One of the popular strategies is to place big stickers with the phrase "I spit on everyone, I park where I want" (), attributed to the 'Federal Programme Against Arrogance on Roads', on car windshields of non-cooperative traffic offenders.
The name of the organization derives from the Russian slang term хам (kham), referring to a boor or lout but more abusive; a person who behaves in a crude disgusting way without respect for him/herself or others; the closest English term would be scumbag. The term is a reference to the Biblical Ham.
A number of incidents involving activists of the movement have garnered significant public attention.
On 21 March 2016, by the Moscow City Court's decision the organization was liquidated. However, on 2 September 2016, the Supreme Court of Russia cancelled the decision.
History
The project was founded in 2010 as one of the federal programs of the Nashi youth movement that existed in the NASHI-2.0 project, under the leadership of movement commissar Dmitry Chugunov. In July of the same year, the project was first presented at the Seliger forum and verbally approved by Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Rashid Nurgaliev.
The main goal of the public movement is the fight against traffic violations and neglect of others by its participants: parking in the wrong place, seizing urban land for parking lots, using sidewalks to travel by car, etc. Activists are looking for improperly parked cars that interfere with others, and, if there is a driver in the car, they turn to him with a request to park the car in accordance with traffic rules. In case of refusal or in the absence of a driver, a round sticker with the text "I don't care about anyone, I can park wherever I want" is put onto the windshield of the car on either the passenger's or driver’s side, and occasionally on the side or rear windows. The process, which is often accompanied by insults from drivers and attempts to fight with the activists demanding to stop the offense, is filmed on video media (telephones, cameras), after which the project activists compile videos and upload them to the Internet: on YouTube, VKontakte and on the official website of the movement.
On May 31, 2014, the project manager of StopHam, the commander of the Nashi movement Dmitry Chugunov, in the direction of developing public control, was elected a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation of the 5th composition, having received 21,883 votes in Internet voting. Subsequently, the project management was temporarily assigned to his supporter Kirill Bunin, but later on Chugunov returned to the post of direct supervisor.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has repeatedly evaluated the actions of StopHam activists. According to this assessment, the actions of the StopHam activists can be regarded as a violation of applicable law and fall under the responsibility stipulated by the articles of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation:
7.17 (destruction or property damage) 19.1 (arbitrariness) 20.1 (hooliganism)
The Minister of Internal Affairs of Karelia Vasily Kukushkin also notes that activists film their actions and post reports on the Internet without the consent of car owners, which "may carry signs of a crime under Article 137 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Violation of privacy ”.