Image: Dmytro Zolotukhin on Twitter
Summer has come to Russia, and the current parliamentary assembly, elected in 2011, has been dissolved before the 18 September elections.
“Some of the most repressive laws in post-Soviet history”
The outgoing Duma this week passed a package of anti-terrorist and anti-extremist laws, labelled “Yarovaya’s package” after Duma deputy Irina Yarovaya.
Russian independent voices expressed deep concern across the board. Among them was leading critical media Meduza, which spoke of “some of the most repressive laws in post-Soviet history”.
The new laws on “failure to report a crime”; “justifying terrorism on social media” and the law that obliges internet communication providers to cooperate with the national security bodies on deciphering encrypted communication have been singled out for criticism.
For an overview of the package, read Meduza’s article in English.
“1937 is back”
Debates over antiterrorist legislation infringing on the freedoms of speech and assembly are not unique to Russia.
However, there is an awareness in Russia of the government’s willingness to apply legislation on “extremism” as a means of silencing political opposition. This week, popular blogger Ilya Varlamov showed in numbers how Russian court rulings that limit freedom of speech have skyrocketed in the past years.
The pink colour shows number of court rulings handed down for ”extremist propaganda on the Internet”; deep red colour stands for rulings on grounds of ”extremist propaganda” outside the internet. (Source: Varlamov.org)
Varlamov’s text was entitled “1937 is back” with a reference to the most intense year of Stalin’s repressions and showed a photo of a handcuffed Kirov governor Nikita Belykh, who was arrested this week on charges of corruption.
A key characteristic of Stalin’s repressions was the systematic persecution of government officials and members of the country’s political elite.