RUSSIAN CITIZENS can be issued official warnings about crimes that they have not yet committed under powers granted to the security services yesterday.
President Dmitry Medvedev signed off on a new law giving the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB, the right to caution people suspected of preparing acts of extremism, or to jail them for obstructing the agency’s work.
The powers appear similar to those enjoyed by Precrime, the police unit in the 2002 Hollywood film Minority Report. “This is a draconian law reminiscent of our repressive past,” said Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the Solidarity opposition movement.
Rights activists had hoped Mr Medvedev would rein in the security services, after his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, a former KGB colonel, stuffed his administration with hawkish veterans. The Kremlin’s tough stance comes against the backdrop of a disparate but emergent civil movement protesting against corruption and authoritarian government.
Under the new provisions, the FSB will be able to echo Soviet practices. The punishment for ignoring a warning was unclear, but 15-day jail sentences are envisaged for “obstructing an FSB officer’s duties”. Sergei Ivanenko, a leader of the Yabloko party, called it “the law of a police state”. He said: “If such a law exists in a democratic country, then it is limited by a very powerful system of civil, public and parliamentary control. In our conditions it will mean absolute power for the security services.”
There have been signs of democratisation under Mr Medvedev, while Mr Putin, whom he replaced two years ago, has continued to promote a hardline image from his post as prime minister. But during a meeting with Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, a fortnight ago, Mr Medvedev said: “Each country has the right to perfect its own legislation, including that which affects its special services.”
He added: “What’s going on now was done according to my own direct instructions.” Russia’s police and security services have looked increasingly clumsy as they try to deal with inventive grassroots activists or single-issue protest groups. One group wears blue buckets on their heads in mimicry of the flashing blue lights on the cars of bureaucrats who terrorise the roads. Another organisation has been attacked while trying to stop destruction of a protected forest near Moscow.
“Medvedev may smile more than Putin but the face of power hasn’t changed,” said Eduard Limonov, an opposition politician who plans to run for president in 2012. – (Guardian service)