In an excellent piece written for CNN, Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch, on 15 May gives an overview of the different measures that threaten human rights defenders in Russia. While attention is on Ukraine, a vicious crackdown on civil society in Russia itself also escalated with every week brings a new pernicious law or legislative proposal:
- The authorities have blocked or essentially took editorial control over a number of independent news portals and are pushing new laws to stifle freedom of expression.
- A week ago, President Vladimir Putin signed a law requiring Russian bloggers with significant followings to register with the authorities and comply with media regulations.
- The same law requires blogging services and social networks to store user activity for six months.
- Another legislative proposal would introduce administrative and criminal offenses for editors who publish “false anti-Russian” information or offer media support to “anti-Russian extremist and separatist forces.”
- Another new draft law introduces a ban on publishing negative information about the Russian government and military.
- Also, amendments presently under review by the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, would enable the authorities to throw people behind bars for up to five years for repeated participation in unauthorized public protests.
At the same time the infamous Russian law “on foreign agents”, which the Russian Constitutional Court recently upheld, continues to require advocacy groups that accept foreign funding to register as “foreign agents.” Russian advocacy groups have put up a united front in resisting the government’s efforts to make them brand themselves foreign agents. Not a single rights group has registered (ADC Memorial preferred to close down rather than registering). For about a year now, they’ve been fighting tough court battles trying to assert their independence. Then the parliament introduced a new legislative proposal authorizing the Justice Ministry to register them as “foreign agents” at its own discretion, without the groups’ consent. The Justice Ministry appears to be resisting the idea and proposed an alternative draft that would empower the prosecutor’s office to suspend groups for up to six months without a court order for alleged failure to register as “foreign agents.” Groups could in theory appeal the suspension, but in this version it is the prosecutor’s office that would confront them in court.Whoever loses this legislative dispute and gets tasked with these courtroom battles,says Tanya Lokshina, it’s still Russia’s independent groups that will suffer.
via Dont Ignore Whats Happening Inside Russia | Human Rights Watch.
This is illustrated by the recent report from Front Line (16 may) that on 14 May 2014, the Novocherkassk City Court ruled that Union ‘Women of Don’ must register as a ‘foreign agent’. The lawyers intend to appeal this decision. [see: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/russian-court-declares-adc-memorial-formally-as-foreign-agent-others-to-follow/#more-4165].
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
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