Russia stretches 'extremism' laws

Newly beefed-up legislation enables the Kremlin to fight a rising wave of racism and other extremist views. But critics say it's being used to stifle political opposition.

from the August 9, 2007 edition

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Russia's top prosecutor, Yury Chaika, said last month that "we have registered 150 extremist crimes in the first six months of this year," a sixfold increase over the same period last year. "The majority of criminal cases are related to public incitement to extremism and racial hatred," the independent Interfax agency quoted him as saying.

Politically biased application of law

But critics, pointing to recent applications of the law, say "extremism" is whatever the Kremlin decides it is. For example, Russia's Supreme Court this week upheld a ban on the National Bolshevik Party, which is led by novelist Eduard Limonov, on the grounds that its leftist ideology and occasionally violent street activism constitute "extremism." Yet some pro-Kremlin youth groups, such as Nashi, engage in very similar tactics.

"Organizations like Nashi, formally established for educational and cultural purposes, actually engage in political campaigns bordering on extremism and promoting xenophobia," according to a July 16 editorial in the independent daily Noviye Izvestia. "The only thing that saves them is their close relationship with the authorities."

Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of Panorama, an independent think tank in Moscow, says that the broad interpretation of extremism has greatly strengthened the Kremlin's hand.

"The new amendments widen the concept of extremism so as to make it practically limitless," says Mr. Pribylovsky, who ran afoul of the law earlier this year when the FSB raided his home searching for "extremist content" and seized his personal papers and computer. It remains unclear what they were looking for, though Pribylovsky is co-writing a biography of Mr. Putin with US-based historian Yury Felshtinsky. He is also the author of a political website, www.anticompromat.ru, which was briefly forced to close down in March.

"Basically [the law] is a universal stick available to punish anyone, and the decision about how and when to use it is in the hands of the officials," says Pribylovsky.

Under the new amendments any crime can be classified as extremism if a political connotation can be shown. "If someone breaks a window, that's hooliganism under Russian law, and the culprit is liable to one year in prison," says Sergei Dickmann, a Moscow staff attorney with Jurists for Constitutional Rights and Freedoms, a nongovernmental organization. "But if you shout something against the authorities while breaking the window, that may now be called extremism and get you up to six years in prison."

The changes will make it a challenge for journalists to cover any political activities other than those sanctioned by the Kremlin, experts say. "It was difficult before, but now it becomes extremely difficult for journalists to do their job," says Mr. Dickmann.

For example, any speech deemed "extremist" that occurs during a broadcast can lead to a media outlet being warned, and then shut down, by authorities. "The practical outcome of this rule is that radio and TV stations will simply stop having live debate and talk shows," says Dickmann.

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