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The imprisonment of A. Navaln, the destruction of the anti-corruption fund under his leadership, was only the beginning of the Kremlin’s crackdown on freedom of expression in Russia.
Andrei Pivovarov, former director of Open Russia, was arrested in St. Petersburg on May 31 and charged with “collaborating with an unwanted organization.” Yuri Sidorov, the coordinator of the Open Russia Division, was also arrested in Cheborkas on the same day.
On June 1, searches were also carried out at the homes and offices of Moscow opposition figures, former MPs Dmitry Gudkov and Alexander Solovyov, who also worked at Open Russia.
Closing means
Not only that, several online news portals closed this week alone. Vtimes, an online publication founded by former Vedomosti journalists, announced the closure of the portal on June 3. Newsru, a 21-year-old news portal, ceased to exist a few days earlier.
In both cases, the reasons are similar: the contraction of the advertising cash flow due to the new law of “foreign agents” adopted in Russia and its very wide application, as well as the safety of the employees. Workers are feared to face arrest and repression as they continue to work.
In April, the Meduza portal, founded by former Lenta employees and based in Riga, was advertised as a “foreign agent”. For these reasons, Medusa has run into financial trouble (Russian advertisers are reluctant to work with “foreign agents”), but for now at least, they are being bailed out with funds raised from readers.
Total cleaning plan
The destruction of Navaln structures or the search for Open Russia members, even after they have announced their removal, are part of a much larger context, political scientist Tatiana Stanovaya told the BBC. What the government used to see as a non-systemic opposition, unpleasant but with a right to exist, is now considered anti-regime.
“Politicians, civic activists, journalists, experts, sociologists and just ordinary people are criticizing the government, and now everything is a crime, and it is no longer the political technologists who do it, but the power structures. “They do not care how the government looks from the outside, and they are not concerned about the issue of its reputation, they see criminals and act accordingly,” says the expert.
Stanovaya is confident that in the coming months everything will remember the “anti-regime behavior” that began after the investigation into the involvement of FST agents in the Navalna poisoning in Russia.
“What happened to Pivovarov, Gudkov and others is not a new phase in the persecution of the opposition, but a continuation of the plan to clear the absolute political field,” political scientist Pavel Salin told the BBC.
“The political space must become absolutely sterile from the point of view of government. Any unfair elements that speak out against political systems in principle, or their individual aspects, and even potentially unfair elements, must also be eradicated. Therefore, this is not the second or third stage, it is a process that was planned in December of last year and began to be implemented this spring, ”he explains.
He calls the current opposition scenario a “dissident” for the future of Russia. The expert predicts that similar persecutions will continue and by the end of the summer “the cleaning will be one hundred percent.”
Penalties for “past mistakes”
Andrei Kolesnikov, an expert at the Carnegie Center in Moscow, believes that the arrest of Andrei Pivovarov also symbolizes the beginning of the retroactive application of the law.
“Past sins will now be punished as well, not only for the present and future ones, but also for the activity that existed before the adoption of one law or another. There is a quasi-legal principle of political retroactivity, “he told the BBC.
A. Kolesnikov noted that the election campaign for the State Duma in September did not reach its peak, so the arrests can also be considered as preparation. “Undoubtedly, this is both a common process of intensification of repression, used independently of the elections, and, in fact, decisions to absolutely clear the political field before the elections, to avoid scandals and protests, to prevent protests have leaders, “he explains. .
The upcoming elections to the State Duma, on the other hand, are more likely to hamper the cleanup of all those who are dissatisfied, political scientist Tatiana Stanovaya is convinced.
“We have a clear division: the national political curators are responsible for the systemic camp and the ‘siloviks’ are responsible for the non-systemic opposition. So the power line existed regardless of choice, the expert said. – I think that the election, on the contrary, is slowing down the process even more. The curators of national policies have their own interest: they want to hold elections in silence, elect a loyal Duma with minimal disruption. On the other hand, it may even be an attempt to carry out the repression process as quietly as possible, not so conflictively, but the attempts are not the most successful. “
Most importantly, Stanovaya warns: the post-election crackdown on “anti-regime elements” is far from over.
Political scientist Konstantin Gaaze told the BBC that the September elections had taken the government out of the “smart voting” system set up by Alexei Navaln’s team to allow the election of independent opposition candidates.
“However, I did not hear any concerns about Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s possible interference in the electoral process. If everything is clear about Navaln, then I am not sure about” Open Russia. “This is probably another. to do list “Not one that says ‘State Duma Elections’, but something else,” he said.
What is the Open Russia Law and the Foreign Agents Law?
On May 27, Open Russia (Russian: Otkrytaja Rossija) announced its complete suspension and “dissolution.” All regional divisions were closed and all members were expelled from the organization.
Such actions had to be taken because of the law that is being examined by the Russian State Duma, which hardens the activities of “undesirable foreign organizations”. It is under this law that the members of Open Russia are now being persecuted.
The law was passed in 2015. It states that “foreign agents” can be foreign and international structures that “threaten the foundations of the constitutional order, defense and security of the country.”
Organizations that have fallen within the scope of this law are prohibited from establishing their representative offices on Russian territory, conducting any public activities, their accounts are frozen, and employees can be prosecuted.
“Open Russia” was founded in 2001, when former oligarch M. Khodorkovsky, who became its president, became its president. He left office in April 2017 and, a few days later, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office declared the British Open Russia Civic Movement and Otkrytaya Rossia undesirable.
The first, according to Alexei Prianishnikov, coordinator of Pravozaščity Otkrytki, was in fact invented: it never existed in British records and its name was taken from the English statutes of Open Russia. Another company, Otkrytaya Rossia, according to the leadership of Open Russia, did not participate at all in the Russian movement, which was founded on Russian territory and at the initiative of Russian citizens themselves.
However, this did not stop the Russian authorities from continuing the administrative prosecution of the Open Russia activists. If a person is prosecuted twice a year under this “undesirable organization” procedure, they may also be subject to criminal proceedings involving up to six years in prison.
The first criminal case under this article was filed in January 2019 against activist Anastasia Shevchenko from Rostov. Their minor offenses: several times they received an administrative sanction for participating in rallies. In February 2021, she was sentenced to four years in prison.
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