The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation did not change its traditions and on Friday published another list of “foreign agents”. It includes the authors of the novels “Summer in a Pioneer Tie” and “What the Swallow Is Silent About” Ekaterina Dudko and Elena Prokasheva, as well as video blogger Nikolai Sobolev, TV journalist Alexander Makashenets and coordinator of the Free Ingria movement Pavel Mezerin .
It has become a sort of ritual. Every Friday, the Department of Justice appoints another group of people who are forced to wear an insulting and burdensome label, mentally preparing themselves for even worse consequences – fines and criminal penalties. And there is no end to this process in sight.
How and by whom these lists are actually compiled remains a mystery, but, according to many experts, they are of great interest as to how the authorities use this tool.
In this sense, the register published last Friday, January 27 is indicative. Recall that for the first time the head of a religious denomination, the Supreme Lama of Kalmykia Telo Tulku Rinpoche (Erdni Ombadykov), who opposed the war in Ukraine from the start, got into it. In addition, the regiment of “foreign agents” was replenished: singer of the group Little Big Ilya Prusikin, activist of the feminist movement Daria Serenko, journalist of the Moscow Times Fidel Agumava, human rights activist Rafis Kashapov , as well as two independent commercial organizations.
Here, a certain pattern is visible when compiling “blacklists”, which were used before. The register should contain one or two sonorous names of people from the world of music, politics, the media sphere, known to a wide audience, and then – in the end.
Be that as it may, but the law, initially presented by its authors and the Russian leaders, including Vladimir Putin himself, as completely harmless and almost “dietetic”, very quickly turned into a punitive tool with which he It’s easy to take NGO assets away, as happened with the Sakharov Center, and impose huge fines on individuals.
“Declaring anyone required a ‘foreign agent’ is child’s play”
Putin’s vertical construction system was initially focused on avoiding reality and based on deception, so the appearance of something like a law on foreign agents in the country was inevitable, believes political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin . And most importantly, in his opinion, that the law is multifunctional, as well as simple and convenient, like a club, which is easy to “stun anyone objectionable to the authorities.”
“This allows, without excessive red tape or legal justification, to silence opponents and simply those who speak the truth: in these times it is a serious crime”, added the interlocutor of media. – You cannot imprison everyone, and to bring a specific person under the article, you still have to make efforts. But declaring anyone required a “foreign agent” is child’s play.”
Thus, the law on “foreign agents” becomes an indispensable tool in the fight against dissent, and at the same time a means of intimidation, said Dmitry Oreshkin. Everything else, in his view, is a matter of tactics to use the existing mechanism.
“Why, for example, don’t the authorities suddenly seize and declare several hundred people as ‘foreign agents’?” he asks. – Partly because they want to give the appearance of legality to an illegal business, but this still requires some bureaucratic efforts, which, apparently, are only enough to solve the problem in small portions. In order to make the action sound louder, they add well-known people in the country every time, and not only, people among politicians, musicians, actors, etc.
Hence the appearance in the “black list” of Maxim Galkin and other media personalities, believes the political scientist. Thus, it seems to him, the authorities say to the rest of the population: “There are no untouchables for us, we will crush everyone to the nail”.
“At the same time, too many ‘foreign agents’ are uncomfortable for the authorities,” he said. – The question will arise: what kind of state is it, which has so many enemies? Therefore, the “foreign agents” can be counted on the fingers. Also, the process needs to be made stretchable over time, so every Friday people get nervous waiting for the listings to appear. The Sword of Damocles in this sense is more constructive than a high-speed chopping block. If a hundred or two people at a time are recognized as “foreign agents”, it will have a greater effect, but it will sooner be forgotten. »
It is easy to foresee a new trend in the context of the law, believes Dmitry Oreshkin. Of course, the authorities will have to intensify the campaign, broaden its scope, and I believe that the time is not far off when real penalties will be pronounced in the event of non-compliance with the rules prescribed by the “foreign agency “, he concluded. .
How the mechanism of sticking labels of foreign agencies works is clear from the case of the famous musician, Russian rock legend Andrei Makarevich. It turns out that he was put on the “blacklist” by the Ministry of Justice in accordance with the appeal of the Main Directorate for Combating Extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Centre “E”).
This became known only from the court decision, where Makarevich filed a lawsuit in an attempt to obtain the abolition of the status. The judge dismissed the lawsuit, citing his decision that the musician had been declared a “foreign agent” due to … “propaganda of a pattern of deviant behavior that is not in accordance with policy State of the Russian Federation”.
“The state considers itself entitled to issue a ‘foreign agency’ for any dissent”
The director and senior lawyer of the Center for the Protection of Media Rights, Galina Arapova, said of the judicial wording that from a legal point of view, “it is, of course, hell”.
“Even under this Jesuit law, a ‘foreign agent’ cannot be recognized as propagandizing anything,” she said in a comment to the media Russian Service. “So how should we interpret Evgeny Prigozhin’s behavior with a sledgehammer and his recruitment of prisoners directly from the colonies as adequate to state policy?”
“Foreign agents” have been given tasks that severely restrict the right to freedom of expression and are in fact openly discriminatory, says Galina Arapova: “And the worst thing here is that the state sees itself as entitled to register a “foreign agency” for any dissent and any statements that do not please the authorities. Here, it is not even necessary that the cavils correspond to the wording prescribed by law. It remains to be assumed that soon the label “enemy of the people” will also be issued for knowledge of a foreign language.
So far, no one has been prosecuted directly under the “foreign agents” article in Russia. At the same time, the director of the Center for the Protection of Media Rights believes that the day when the situation will change radically is not far away.
“Of course they have other tools as well,” she says. – “Foreign agents” Ilya Yashin and Alexander Nevzorov were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment (Nevzorov – in absentia) on the basis of the law on “forgery”. But even for a “foreign agency”, anyone can be deprived of their liberty, and quite quickly, for example by imposing several fines in a row.
The other day, a Moscow court fined the head of the Sakharov Center, Sergei Lukashevsky, who previously appeared in the register of “foreign agents”, was fined three million rubles at a time for ten protocols for violation of the law.
What this will lead to, we will soon see, will not rush things, concluded Galina Arapova.
