In a bizarre decision six years ago, the Walt Disney character fell foul of laws outlawing "extremist materials" even though the 1942 cartoon was an anti-Hitler classic
Donald Duck has been cleared of extremism in Russia after a court ordered the removal of a wartime cartoon about Adolf Hitler from a banned list.
In a bizarre decision six years ago, the Walt Disney character fell foul of Moscow legislation outlawing "extremist materials" even though the famous cartoon was an anti-Nazi classic.
The eight-minute 'Der Fuehrer's Face', made in 1942, features Donald Duck having a nightmare about life under Adolf Hitler.
In 2012, a local resident in Kamchatka, in the east of Siberia, uploaded the cartoon and was hit and he was given a suspended sentence for "inciting racial hatred" by the city court in regional capital Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky.
The cartoon was added to Russia's national list of "extremist materials" because of the court decision.
Later prosecutors realised the blunder and went back to court to admit Donald Duck was starring in a wartime propaganda film that was anti-Nazi, reported .
They told the judge the cartoon portrays Nazism in caricature form and was mocking and satirical in nature, so cannot be viewed as "extremist."
The cartoon will now be removed from a list of 3,700 banned items.
The list came into effect in 2002, two years after Vladimir Putin was first elected to the Kremlin.
The film's director Jack Kinney won an Academy Award for best animated short cartoon in 1943.
