02 Apr 12 | Russia
The Federation Council of Russia has passed anti-extremism legislation which rights activists consider threatening to Kremlin’s public critics. It prohibits people who were charged with extremism to work with children in such fields as education, medical care, social security, sports and recreation.
According to lawmakers, the new legislation aims to protect children from radicalisation. But human rights activists and a number of trade union leaders have expressed their concerns over such law: together with drug and defamation legislation, anti-extremism laws in Russia are often used against Kremlin critics.
The term “extremism” is defined vaguely in Russian law, making it easy for judges to condemn innocent people. For example, if a person publicly criticises police for dispersal of peaceful protesters, he might then be charged with extremism for “incitement to social hatred” according to Russian law.
Another example of anti-extremism law misuse is seen through the prosecution of libraries staff and internet providers for allegedly promoting extremist literature. In practice, some libraries and providers do not have access to information from law enforcement authorities detailing which books are extremist. Examples of this were analysed in detail by SOVA Center for information and analysis, who described anti-extremist legislative measures in Russia as repressive.
Education union leader Andrey Demidov called the new legislation an “employment ban”, explaining that due to the vague definition of extremism and corrupted law enforcement and judicial systems, any teacher who openly criticises the government is likely to be charged on extremism and loose their job forever.
Elections in Russia are mostly held in schools, and most local election commission members are usually teachers. After allegedly fraudulent parliamentary elections, opposition activists appealed to teachers asking them not to participate in fraud. Many supported that request, which, together with high activity from election monitors, led to Vladimir Putin not winning presidential elections in March in Russia’s “two capitals,” Moscow and Saint-Petersburg.
07 Mar 12 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
Around 100 journalists were attacked by a large crowd in India yesterday, whilst covering local elections in northern state Uttar Pradesh. The journalists were forced to lock themselves in a school, which was being used as an election centre, after clashes broke out between supporters of the parties involved in the election. The crowd of approximately 4,000 turned on the journalists on the evening of the election, after the results had been announced. They were assaulted, and their equipment and vehicles were damaged by the crowd. The journalists were able to leave the school early on Wednesday morning.
07 Mar 12 | Russia
The first protests after Putin’s victory were nothing like the merry mass demonstrations of the past months. An unprecedented mobilisation of special forces from Moscow cracked down on the 20,000 protesters at the end of the opposition demonstration in Pushkin square last night.
In spite of the first exit polls that were suggesting a second round might occur, Vladimir Putin won the presidential elections again last Sunday with an imposing result of 63.75 per cent of the vote. He is thus set to remain the President of Russia for another 6 years, and will be able to run for one more 6-year-long mandate after that.
Allegations of fraud persist. Following the parliamentary elections 3 months ago, which were widely perceived to be unfair, a great number of Russians got involved in the election monitoring process. Twitter feeds exploded with reports of election rigging from the early hours of Sunday morning, and did not stop until after the closure of polling stations. People were eager to document and record occurrences of “carousels”, where groups of people vote several times at different polling stations, usually travelling in small buses.
Masha, an observer in central Moscow, said: “the fraud is still happening, but the methods have somehow changed, and we are struggling to figure them out. Commission members are using erasable pens, which is not illegal, but certainly odd.”
Gesturing to a nearby voter, Masha added: “That girl, for instance, looks underage, but we are not allowed to check her documents. Up to 8% of people who voted at this polling station did not appear in the official lists, but voted using “otkrepitelnye”, documents allowing them to vote somewhere else“.
Mihail, observer in Altufevo, in the northern outskirts of the capital, was happy with the way the electoral process was going in the late morning hours. In the evening he called to say that severe violations occurred: “A great amount of voters who were not in the lists this morning have been included in them during the day. A carousel of some 100 people came in a neighbour polling station. We complained to the regional election commission, but all our complaints were rejected”.
On the positive side, the past few days have been a time of great active citizenship in Moscow. The choice of around 30,000 Russians to monitor on the fairness of the elections in person produced a big amount of political public discourse. Elections turned from a boring, barely noticed appointment which is better to be avoided, into a participatory process in which all the information available is rapidly assimilated and shared for further use.
But this did not happen everywhere, and did not involve everyone. Rural areas remained virtually untouched by the new wave of political interest that is evident in the big cities. For those who visited it in the past, the turn around in Moscow is a great surprise. Nicolas, a Swiss broadcaster told me: “Back in 2006, the only people who were talking about Russian politics were us, the foreigners. Today, you can hear people discussing Putin, Prokhorov and Navalny in most of the cafés”.
Those who thought that this political awakening would make a visible impact on the result of the elections were bitterly disappointed. The evening after the polls were counted, activists hit the streets once again, and nationalist groups responded with counter-actions. The biggest protest took place on Pushkin square, in the heart of Moscow. The numbers were much lower than those of the December demonstrations, and yet it felt as though the square could not hold any more people. Nearby streets were clogged with an impressive deployment of special corps, and the general atmosphere was quite gloomy, a totally different story from the joyful mood of the Garden Ring eight days before.
The protesters did not try to march towards the Kremlin, as it was previously announced. Instead, many of them stayed on the square once the official protest was over, provoking violent reactions from the police. Among the arrested — and soon released — were anti-corruption lawyer Aleksey Navalny, Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov, Duma MP Ilya Ponomarev, Time magazine reporter Simon Shuster.
There are two things that are clear after the events of the past few days: protesters won’t stop their actions, until the whole of Russia is following them. What is less clear is Putin’s reaction to the discontent. Now that he cannot count on Medvedev’s image as a progressive liberal to balance his iron reputation, will he use good or bad manners to deal with those who question his legitimacy? The bright days of the protests may be over together with last night’s demonstration.
04 Mar 12 | Russia
Election day is here. And, according to all the signals, it will be as interesting as anticipated.
The first exit polls coming from the far Eastern regions of Russia are quite shocking: preferences for Putin’s United Russia are below 50 per cent, reaching as low as 42 per cent according to certain pollsters. If this is confirmed, a second round will be needed for Putin’s victory. On the other hand, Twitter and Facebook feeds are exploding with videos and pictures documenting “Carousels”, buses with voters sent to cast their votes for United Russia, often more than once.
After a few very calm days, perhaps the calm before the storm, there were several worrying episodes of opposition activists attacked and arrested in Moscow in the late hours of yesterday. Several members linked to the all-girl punk band Pussy Riot, who perform anti-Putin songs dressed in bright mini-skirts and coloured balaclavas, were arrested on charges of hooliganism following an impromptu performance at a cathedral on 21 February. At Kropotkinskaya metro station, two Solidarnost activists and one Novaya Gazeta photo reporter were held. A member of the Committee for Fair Elections, Aleksandr Bilov, was attacked in his home’s entrance and arrested after he fought back the attack.
Early this morning, an army of nearly 30,000 election observers marched towards the polling stations assigned to them, gathering there by 7:30am. Most were well equipped with smart phones, video cameras and guides to correct electoral procedures. As announced in December, Putin installed £320m worth of web cameras around polling stations to contribute to the fairness of the elections, but this did not reassure his opponents much. If proof was needed to confirm that a wave of civil activism has hit Moscow, then this army of election watchers is the final one. Tweeting by observers has already gone viral with the Twitter hash-tag #выборы2012.
Putin is expected to win, eventually, but the question is by how much. His ratings are still extremely high in the countryside, where “any desire of living better is outweighed by a persistent fear of living worse”, the NYT reports. Besides that, none of the other candidates pose an actual threat to him. The only real new entry is the liberal businessman Prokhorov, whose campaign was too short to be able to gain a significant amount of followers. Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky are two “professional opposition candidates” at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, who are today little more than caricatures of themselves, while Mironov… who is Mironov? An anonymous long-time Putin backer, hardly taken seriously by anyone. Yavlinsky, Yabloko leader and most serious counter-candidate, was not allowed to run in the elections because of alleged irregularities in the collection of signatures.
The main person to watch in the opposition spectrum remains Aleksey Navalny. The anti-corruption blogger and lawyer has rapidly risen to political stardom over the past few months. He is a controversial figure — concerns are often raised about his nationalistic views and his “prima donna” attitude. He is very popular among the younger generations for his open way of interacting on the web. It will be interesting to observe his public appearances in the next few days: much of his political future may depend from it.
Among the opposition forces nobody dares say it out loud, but many think that Putin’s defeat would not be a good thing right now. The opposition is too young and fragile to be effective. Until only some months ago, there was nobody to listen to it. Suddenly, Moscow is buzzing with political talk and desire for change, but until a couple of years (if not months) ago, the only people you could find speaking about Russian politics were foreigners. A potential new Russian leader needs a basis of consensus which is still in development, and an all-encompassing programme that it is still lacking.
Demonstrations have already been announced for tomorrow, 5 March. Opposition will gather at 7pm in Pushkin square, while the nationalist group Nashi will be in Manezh square at 4pm. The opposition wants to take the protest to the Red Square but authorities have not allowed this action, though it may still go ahead. Rumours say that the action at the Garden Ring last week was been the last peaceful demonstration, but it could be counterproductive for Putin to crack hard on the protesters.
The carrot-and-stick Medvedev-and-Putin political model gone, it is now time for Vladimir Putin to reveal which one of the two methods is he going to choose in his next term as president of the Russian Federation — which might begin later than expected.
