Guilty Until Proven Innocent

I feel that I’m in Russia at an inflection point in history. Although I’m a close follower of Russian news even when in the United States, I have rarely been as distressed as I was on Thursday, July 29, 2010. That is the day that President Dmitry Medvedev signed a law that expands the powers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) by allowing it to issue warnings to people it deems are preparing to commit crimes.

Sure, this is not the first case in Russia of stifling free speech and freedom of assembly in the name of combating terrorism and what is vaguely called “an extremist crime.” What really bothers me is that Medvedev took credit for initiating the bill.

Russia has a tradition of “the good tsar.” When bad things happen, the blame falls on the people around the tsar, not on the tsar himself. And Medvedev has looked like a good tsar. He wants modernization and an end to corruption, yadda yadda yadda.

A news report said, “President Dmitry Medvedev curtly warned foreign countries against meddling in Russia's domestic security issues Thursday, referring to the bill aimed at expanding the powers of the Federal Security Service.” The report quoted Medvedev after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel right here in Ekaterinburg. "The law on the FSB is our domestic bill,” he said testily. “Every country has a right to improve its legislation, including related to the special services."

As originally written, presumably with Medvedev’s concurrence, the legislation would have allowed the imprisonment and fining of people who ignored FSB summons and warnings. The new law has more elegant cruelty without that provision. International publicity about imprisoning someone the FSB thought might possibly commit a crime would damage Russia’s reputation. Now a visit by the FSB will have the chilling effect of stopping opposition protests before they start, through self-censorship. If you are told the FSB would charge you with a crime if you proceed, you know you would be convicted, because the courts invariably side with the prosecutors. (Actually, the conviction rate is about 90%, I believe. You do have a small chance to escape jail.)

As this bill was working its way through the Duma, it got little publicity in Russia. I heard about it on BBC radio on Thursday, a day when I was having tea with a friend. My friend was surprised and understood the dark consequences of this legislation. She didn’t expect much coverage in the Russian media, because there is little room for criticizing the administration. The vise is tightening.

There is one group that persists in demonstrating, even without permits. On the 31st of months that have 31 days, there are small groups in big cities that turn out for Marches of Dissent, protesting the lack of freedom of assembly that is supposedly guaranteed by Article 31 of the Russian constitution. These protests don’t have much resonance with the Russian people. I’ve heard from more than one source the feeling that the leaders of this movement are simply grandstanding, out for personal publicity.

Slava thinks that I’m making too big a deal out of all of this. Actually, I hope he’s right. I hope that the government uses its newly expanded powers only to go after truly bad guys. Some times I’d rather be wrong than right.