Moscow – Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a package of controversial new laws that expand government powers to label individuals and organizations as “foreign agents” and introduce a series of new restrictions on media organizations.
Sputnik / Mikhail Klimentyev / Kremlin
The new laws expand the “Foreign agent” legislation adopted in 2012, which allowed authorities to apply the label to human rights groups and other organizations that receive funding from outside Russia. In recent years, this has led to the closing of offices, lawsuits and fines for some prominent non-governmental organizations in Russia. The legislation was updated last year to make it applicable against individuals, including journalists and bloggers.
The amendments signed by the president on Wednesday expand the parameters under which a person or entity can be officially considered “a foreign agent” in Russia, a term that carries negative connotations that go back to the Cold War period.
“Foreign agents”
According to the law, Russian or foreign citizens who receive assistance from abroad and engage in political activities “in the interest of a foreign state” must register as foreign agents.
Critics of the legislation point out that the legal definition of “political activity” is extremely broad, including, for example, monitoring elections, issuing opinions on state policies – including through comments on social networks – and participating in rallies.
The definition gives authorities the opportunity to use the law against almost all dissenting voices ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections.
Amnesty International condemned the bill last month, warning that it signaled “a new witch hunt” in Russia.
“This exposes the Russian authorities’ belief that civil society actors are destructive ‘agents of the West’, committed to destabilizing the government,” said Natalia Prilutskaya, Russian researcher at Amnesty International. “The Russian authorities have already left civil society financially hungry and forced many organizations to close. Now, they are demonizing even more individual activists.”
Under the expanded law, foreign journalists can be added to the official list of “foreign agents” if state officials decide that they have done something “incompatible with a journalist’s professional activities”.
“Foreign agents” are subject to restrictions, including the provision of financial reports on their activities and their identification in publications in Russia. A separate bill signed by Putin on Wednesday imposes penalties ranging from fines to five years in prison for designated foreign agents who do not register or report their activities as required.
Legislator Vasily Piskarev, a co-sponsor of the bill, defended the initiative, insisting it was necessary to protect “the sovereignty of the Russian Federation and prevent interference in the internal affairs of our state”.
Earlier this week, the Ministry of Justice added a prominent support organization Russian victims of domestic violence, Nasiliu.Net, to its list of “foreign agents”, sparking outrage among human rights activists. The ministry also added five people, including veteran rights activist Lev Ponomaryov, 79, a longtime critic of Putin, to its list of foreign media agents, along with four others, including a journalist from Rádio Europa Livre / Rádio Liberdade .
Restricting the press and everyone else
Putin ended the year by signing dozens of other bills on Wednesday, many of which are expected to further consolidate his rule. One gives Russian regulators powers to block all or part of Internet platforms that “discriminate” against state media.
Advocates of the law cited complaints from state media about the treatment of prejudice on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Twitter currently labels some Russian media “state-affiliated media”, which has been criticized by officials in Moscow. YouTube blocked some pro-Kremlin channels this year, a move that Russian officials have ridiculed as “an act of censorship”.
The project’s authors said the goal was to target foreign social networks, but it can also be used against Russian platforms.
Another law passed by the president prohibits political rallies near emergency service buildings, such as police stations or buildings belonging to intelligence agencies.
Sharing personal data or information about the work of intelligence agents or law enforcement agencies is now a crime – an initiative seen as a reaction to recent media investigations led by Bellingcat organization, which used leaked data to reveal the names, photos and phone numbers of FSB officials allegedly involved in the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.