Russia: Repressive Laws Used to Crush Civil Liberties

• The Russian government’s crackdown on civil liberties since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 represents a drastic escalation of a sustained assault on fundamental rights that has lasted more than a decade.
• Hundreds of people have been imprisoned or arrested under repressive new laws. Discussion of a wide range of issues cannot take place openly, and many dissidents, journalists and activists have gone into exile.
• The Russian government should repeal draconian laws, bring them into line with its international obligations and create an environment in which civil society can develop.

(New York, August 7, 2024) – Human Rights Watch said in a report released today that the Russian government’s crackdown on civil liberties since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 represents a dramatic escalation in a relentless assault on fundamental rights that has spanned more than a decade.

The 205-page report, “Russia’s Legislative Minefield: Tripwires for Civil Society since 2020,” focuses on a wave of repressive laws and policies that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government has adopted since 2020, and how the Kremlin has used them to suppress domestic dissent and disempower civil society. These laws severely restrict the rights to freedom of speech, association, and peaceful assembly, and impose state-enforced historical, social, and political narratives on public life.

All of the Russian activists released in the August 1, 2024 prisoner swap were charged under the laws outlined in the report. However, hundreds of others remain in prison or imprisoned under those laws. Critical discussion of a wide range of issues cannot take place openly, and many dissidents, journalists, and activists have gone into exile.

“The Russian government is forcing activists and journalists to tread a dangerous minefield of legislation, and their resilience is being tested like never before,” said Rachel Denber, deputy director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch. “But independent groups and media outlets persist and offer hope for Russia’s eventual transformation into a country committed to protecting and promoting fundamental rights.”

Human Rights Watch examined these repressive laws in eight broad areas: “foreign agents,” public assembly, voting rights, freedom of speech, sexual orientation and gender identity, treason and related concepts, historical truth, and education.

The most important piece of legislation in the government’s legislative crackdown is the “foreign agencies” law, which seeks to smear any person or entity that independently criticizes the government as “foreign” and therefore suspicious or even treasonous. Russian authorities first passed the “foreign agencies” law in 2012 and have since repeatedly toughened it and used it as a pretext to shut down some of the country’s leading human rights groups. The report traces how the laws first targeted nongovernmental organizations, then unregistered groups, media outlets, journalists and other categories of individuals, and by 2022 anyone the state deemed “under foreign influence.”

Penalties have become more severe over time and now include fines, imprisonment and the revocation of citizenship for naturalized citizens. Amendments would also bar alleged “foreign agents” from many aspects of public life, including the civil service and teaching, until 2022-23, as authorities sought to create what one activist called an “untouchable caste.”

The series of amendments has eroded what little freedom there was of peaceful assembly, effectively making legal protests illegal, Human Rights Watch said. Authorities have introduced a strict licensing system that requires protest organizers to request and receive explicit permission to hold a public gathering. They have equated public walks and one-person picket lines with mass protests, closing several loopholes that people used to organize protests and evade Russia’s repressive public gathering laws. They have introduced wildly unrealistic requirements for verifying the origin of funds and donations for public events and for reporting on their management.

The war censorship laws, hastily adopted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, prohibit the dissemination of information or views on the conduct of the Russian armed forces that differ from official accounts. Penalties include long prison sentences, deprivation of citizenship for naturalized Russians, and confiscation of property. More than 480 people have been brought to trial on charges of war censorship.

Other amendments criminalize criticism of the security services under a vaguely defined concept of “publicly calling for a breach of state security” and introduce harsher charges and penalties for defamation.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people have long faced discrimination, harassment and violence, particularly in the context of a 2013 anti-gay “propaganda” law. Amendments to the legislation, adopted from 2022, amount to an all-out assault as the Kremlin positions itself as a global defender of “traditional values,” Human Rights Watch said.

The amendments expanded the propaganda law to effectively ban public discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity and outlaw all depictions of so-called “unconventional relationships” aimed at people under 18. Even images of a same-sex couple holding hands can only be shown under the new restrictions or if they are marked as restricted, paid content. Bookstores began stocking books that could potentially trigger violations under the new rules or pulled them from shelves.

A 2023 Supreme Court ruling declared the “International LGBT Movement” an “extremist organization,” allowing for the arbitrary prosecution and imprisonment of LGBT people and anyone who defends their rights or expresses solidarity with them.

The new laws expand the definition of treason to include individuals who do not have access to state secrets, and espionage to include passing information to an expanded definition of “enemy agents” that includes foreign and international organizations. The authors of the treason laws have openly admitted that the law is aimed at targeting civil society groups. Other laws criminalize cooperation with international bodies “to which Russia is not a party,” such as the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and engaging foreign entities in “confidential cooperation” against Russia’s national security. The new laws also ban cooperation with unregistered foreign organizations and extend the ban on cooperation with organizations deemed “undesirable” by the authorities.

According to media reports based on data from Russian courts, in 2023, the authorities referred 101 cases of treason, espionage and confidential cooperation to Russian courts, which is five times more than in 2022. The number of criminal proceedings for participation in “undesirable” organizations has increased.

Amendments to the constitution in 2020 introduced the concept of “historical truth” into law, which Russia pledges to “protect.” In 2021, parliament passed laws banning comparisons between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and criminalizing insulting the memory of World War II veterans.

Human Rights Watch says the broader context is one of authorities imposing an official historical narrative that glorifies the achievements of the Soviet era while belittling, excusing, and in some cases disputing the facts about Joseph Stalin’s Great Terror and other Soviet-era atrocities.

Laws passed in 2021 introduced tighter oversight of education, further limiting Russians’ access to information, eliminating alternatives to the historical, social and political narratives promoted by the government, and policing interactions with foreigners.

The Russian government should end its long-standing repression and instead create an environment in which civil society can flourish, Human Rights Watch said. It should repeal draconian laws and follow recommendations from the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations to bring laws and practices into line with Russia’s international human rights obligations.

“The Kremlin is constantly turning back the clock to a past tyranny,” Denber said. “Russia’s laws should expand respect for rights, not destroy them.”