Leonid Nikitinsky

10 February 2025

The Duma and the government continue to create meaningless repressive laws at the behest of the security services

by Leonid Nikitinsky

Source: Novaya gazeta

A real “foreign agent” knows how to work with open sources: Mediazona and OVD-Info (both resources are recognized as “foreign agents”) drew attention to the appearance in the Duma’s database of draft laws on three initiatives aimed at “combatting extremism” (as so defined there). All three were introduced on February 6 by the government, i.e. the Ministry of Justice and law enforcement agencies.

We already commented on one of the draft laws when Vedomosti reported on it at the end of January, citing a source in the Ministry of Justice. But either the “source” was unreliable, or the draft law was altered even before the legislative initiative came to light.

We are talking about Article 282 of the Criminal Code, which stipulates a punishment of two to five years under the first part, and three to six years under the second for “actions aimed at inciting hatred or enmity, as well as denigration of the dignity of a person or group of persons on the basis of gender, race, nationality, language, origin, attitude to religion, as well as belonging to any social group…”.

Draft law No. 835233-8 proposes to exclude from Part 1 the so-called administrative prejudice – according to which the accused can currently be held criminally liable only if there is an administrative penalty for the same thing under Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation. In the version “leaked” to Vedomosti, this element was replaced by another mandatory condition: the subjective side of the crime must imply “justification or propaganda of the use of violence or the threat of its use.”

In the version that has just appeared in the Duma database, Part 1 of Article 282 includes both features according to the “either-or” (and-and) principle: under this basis it will be possible to impute this to someone who has been subject to administrative punishment – but also in the case of “justification or propaganda – to someone for use of violence or the threat of its use.”

Perhaps the initiative of the Ministry of Justice derives from an analysis of practice from which it follows that propaganda of violence often accompanies “incitement to hatred.” Those dissenters who, on the contrary, promote the rejection of violence, should not be affected by this initiative, and perhaps it can be welcomed, with the caveat that Russian courts are quite capable of interpreting “propaganda of violence” in accordance with the Orwellian principle “War is peace.”

Two more related bills (No. 835234-8 and 835248-8) propose amendments to Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code (“organization of the activities of an extremist organization, as well as participation in it”) and the accompanying prohibitions in the law on mass media. Inevitably, in connection with this, the practice of applying Article 282.1, which interprets the organization of an extremist group and participation in it, will also change.

The difference between an “organization” and a “group” was finally erased at the point at which individual legislative acts and court decisions began to qualify movements and currents as “organizations” without creating a legal entity. Thus, the LGBT* movement was recognized as extremist.

Lawyer Eva Levenberg tries to figure out where the bodies are buried in the comments:

“Most likely, Article 282.1 will be applied selectively – primarily to individuals – in order to obtain the key element for further prosecution: a guilty verdict. This verdict will become the legal basis for recognizing the entire group as extremist, after which its participants will be able to be prosecuted not as members of the group, but as participants in an extremist organization.”

It’s essentially a case of six of one or half a dozen of the other if we compare Articles 282.1 and 282.2 in terms of severity. The punishment for participating in a “group” is slightly lighter, although it is quite comparable to participating in an “organization”. Apparently, the investigative and judicial practice, entangled in this mess, has come to the conclusion that “organizations” will absorb “groups”. The practice of bringing the verdict of “organizer” to any participants, including remote and exotic ones, simply via the principle of combining words in a sentence has already been worked out. Such is the entire ramified cluster of cases against the Anti-Corruption Foundation (both the organization and the group are recognized as extremist and are banned in the territory of the Russian Federation), in which regional heads of Navalny’s headquarters* and even his lawyers have been prosecuted.

In my opinion, all three initiatives of the Ministry of Justice change very little and are, in principle, unnecessary: existing repressive legislation is more than enough to combat dissent. But one must somehow demonstrate one’s participation in this “existential” struggle! The funniest thing is not the Ministry of Justice, but the Duma. It has gone from being a “deranged printer” to some kind of darning and patching studio under the so-called security agencies.

And there is no one left to stop this flow of legislative madness, cruelty and real hatred. After all, there probably are sane people in the Duma itself – and in the government, and in the presidential administration – who understand that it is time to slow down. But no one dares to say it out loud – at least if they don’t want to get fired or be subjected themselves to “under the article”-style consequences. After all, the top dogs in the security services and law enforcement have enough of such remedies for everyone.

The system only understands the command “attack”. Once in the heat of the moment, it will not hear the command “slow down!”

* Recognized by the court as extremist organizations/groups (don’t even bother trying to wrap your head around it), their activities are prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Translated by Nathalie Wilson