Россия: Silence Is Golden

[Minskaya]

Controversial treason law takes effect in Russia
November 14. 2012

MOSCOW (AP) — A controversial new law widely expanding the definition of treason has come into effect in Russia despite President Vladimir Putin's promise to review it. The legislation published Wednesday in the government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta widens the interpretation of treason to include activities such as financial or consultative assistance to a foreign state, an international or a foreign organization. While the previous law describes high treason as espionage or other assistance to a foreign state damaging Russia's external security, the new legislation expands the definition by dropping the word "external." Rights activists warned that the new law is so vague that it would allow the government to brand any dissenter a traitor.

USA Today

In addition, Russia will begin implementing a new Internet filtering policy which will blacklist websites that engage in "blasphemy" (a euphemism for libel/dissent).

[omon]

they are getting closer to usa, in that regard. anyone here can be labled terorist. no laws are clear. all depends on your lawer.

[S2]

Omon Reply

"they are getting closer to usa, in that regard. anyone here can be labled terorist. no laws are clear. all depends on your lawer."

Bullsh!t. Don't be needlessly stupid unless you're flame-baiting. There's no comparison but you're welcome to return to that kleptocratic paradise if you think otherwise.

[igorfazlyev]

The Russian internet filtering law officially targets 'child pornography', not blasphemy.
The catch is the 'blacklisting' procedure is extra-judicial, in other words, there is some committee that black lists websites, so if they decide to black-list your site they can just essentially go ahead and do that and then you will have to 'prove' that your site doesn't have any child porn on it. So the whole presumption of innocence thing is kind of turned on its head with this law. Black-list first, ask questions later.

The 'blacklisting' committee has an official website where anyone can submit a link to a website they think should be blacklisted. The committee will then review your request and decide whether or not to blacklist the website. As soon as this website opened it was swamped with requests to black list all the official websites of various Russian government agencies, the presidential administration, the state duma etc. It didn't work, naturally - none of those sites were blacklisted but it was kind of funny.

[Minskaya]

The Russian internet filtering law officially targets 'child pornography', not blasphemy.

It is a simple matter to marry internet monitoring/blacklisting with the new treason law.

[igorfazlyev]

imho the new treason law is a completely different kettle of fish than the internet black list law.
The Internet blacklist law, to the best of my knowledge, is not a criminal law.
It's a fairly blunt information warfare instrument - the basic idea is that it gives the authorities legal power to simple block websites they don't like on the grounds of said websites allegedly containing child porn or links to child porn. Again, the worst thing about this black list is that this black list committee or whatever they call it, has the authority to blacklist websites first and ask questions later. However, if your website gets blacklisted it doesn't mean that you will be prosecuted for a criminal offence. Actually this whole blacklisting thing is aimed primarily at off-shore web resources that local Russian authorities have no control over so all they can do is demand that Russian ISP's block access to any such web resources that the Kremlin deems to be subversive. The Russian constitution still guarantees freedom of speech so they had to come up with this child porn excuse for this law.

The new treason law is an amendment to the criminal code, it substantially expands the definition of treason, intentionally keeping it very loose and open to all kinds of interpretation by courts. Theoretically if you stop to talk to a foreigner on the street, you may be hauled in and convicted of treason under this new, however it has a different purpose than the internet blacklist law. The aim, far as I can understand, of this new amendment to the criminal code is to cut off alternative/foreign sources of funding for NGO's. Earlier last year they passed a law requiring that all NGO's that receive funding from abroad register as 'foreign agents' and then towards the end of the year they expanded the legal definition of treason so now technically if you receive funds from abroad and exchange information with a foreign organisation you can be convicted of treason. Essentially it pretty much criminalises any and all relations with foreign organisations. Relations with foreigners, i.e. individual people, are not criminalised, however, it's a rather fine distinction because if push comes to shove it can always be argued that this nice American that you told how to get back to his hotel is an employee of a foreign organisation and thus you divulged sensitive information to a foreign organisation and deserve to go to jail for treason.

The bottom line is both these laws are stupid, both violate a bunch of human rights, both are overkill representing the thrashings of an extremely insecure and corrupt government, but they work in very different ways and have very different goals.

[Minskaya]

The bottom line is both these laws are stupid, both violate a bunch of human rights, both are overkill representing the thrashings of an extremely insecure and corrupt government, but they work in very different ways and have very different goals.

The bottom line is that both facets can be easily manipulated to intimidate and/or silence.