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Puting A Little Stalinism Back In Russian Politics

Radio Free Europe on Stalin’s, I mean Putin’s effort to legalize repression. Treason redefinition has loopholes you could drive a Siberia-bound trainload of dissidents through: 

At the behest of Vladimir Putin’s government, Russian lawmakers are about to give the legal definitions of treason and espionage a little makeover. Just some minor cosmetic changes. Nothing to be alarmed about, really.

In the Russian Criminal Code, treason currently is defined as taking action aimed at damaging the country’s external security. Espionage is defined as revealing state secrets to foreign governments, their organizations, or their representatives.

The government submitted a bill to the State Duma on December 12 widening treason to include endangering Russia’s “constitutional order, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.” Likewise, the definition of espionage will be expanded to include revealing state secrets to foreign NGOs.

Not surprisingly, rights activists are duly distressed. The daily “Kommersant” quoted Lev Levinson of the Human Rights Institute as saying that that if the authorities are really going to interpret “any action directed against the constitutional regime” as treason, then its goal was apparently “to restore the Stalinist norm when anti-Soviet activity was a criminal offense.”

Along the same lines, Boris Nadezhdin, head of the law department at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, said flatly that “anyone who has spoken to a foreigner could be declared a traitor.”

To illustrate the point, Nadezhdin said that he had told the BBC about a letter he signed opposing constitutional amendments extending presidential terms to six years.

“Had the bill been effective then, I would have been arrested for treason, because I first signed an anti-constitutional letter and then discussed the issue with a foreign organization,” Nadezhdin said.

And its not just touchy-feely human rights types that are raising red flags.

Yury Skuratov, who served as prosecutor-general under former President Boris Yeltsin told Interfax that the changes are “primarily a form of  political  and  legal  influence  on  the  activity  of various international foundations, which actively work in our country.” He added that “the  regime  seems  to  fear that they can seriously influence the situation  in  Russia.  It is possible that the experience of orange revolutions, almost  all  of  which used these tools, was taken into consideration.”

On the same day the government submitted the legislation, the State Duma also approved the third reading of changes to the criminal code that would eliminate the right to jury trials for a series of crimes, including: terrorism, hostage-taking, mass disturbances, rebellion, espionage, diversion, organizing unlawful armed formations, treason, and attempts to seize power by force.

 

 

MOSCOW – New legislation backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would allow Russian authorities to label any government critic a traitor – a move that rights activists said Wednesday was a chilling throwback to times of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Strong language from a crowd that rues the ouster of Saddam by that scourge of human rights, George Bush.

Someone may want to tell that piker Bush that this, not that lame Patriot Act terrorist-bothering thing, is how you go about stifling dissident. Along with shutting down the opposition media, getting thugs to beat up protestors, that kind of thing. Speaking of which, someone please tell Bush he only has a few short weeks of rights-trampling left if he wants to shut up any critics and throw them in Guantanamo. 

In other Russky news, look for a test of Obama’s stuff. NYT:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Russia has become more rigid in dealing with the United States on issues like the Bush administration’s plans for a missile shield in Europe, and it looks ready to test the administration of President-elect Barack Obama, a senior American diplomat said Wednesday.

The diplomat, John Rood, under secretary of state for arms control and international security, said that talks in Moscow this week had failed to narrow differences between Russia and the United States on the missile shield plan and suggested that Russia was pausing to take stock of the Obama team.

“They have paused with the election of a new administration in the United States, and they are looking carefully at the position of the new team,” Mr. Rood told reporters.

“My assessment is that the Russians intend to test the mettle of the new administration and the new president,” he said.

 Hot Air notes the Putinists are going after NGOs, too.

Topics: Obama, Russia, commies

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:09 pm Comments (0) on Wednesday, December 17, 2008

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