Since mid-2022, hundreds of criminal cases have appeared in Russia against activists (at the end of May, OVD-Info
reported 581 cases just for anti-war protests), who are accused of various crimes, from “discrediting the army” to “high treason.”
From a legal and organizational point of view, the prosecution in political cases is following a model similar to the one used for many years to prosecute businesspeople. In each district or city department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (there is such a department in every administrative unit with a population of 10,000-100,000 people) there are employees who are ready to work by this model. This means that from a technical point of view, repression can be significantly expanded: from the current dozens of cases a month up to several hundred.
The obvious absurdity of political cases (for “fake news,” for “discrediting the army” and the like) can hardly be surprising. In past years, law enforcement has initiated no less absurd cases against small, marginalized groups (
Islamic activists,
Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.), or against Alexei Navalny, whom the regime considered its political opponent (for example, the
Kirovles case).
In political cases, other “evidence” usually turned up – relatively convincing on the surface but actually very dubious.
Now, the amount of absurdity in “political” persecution has increased dramatically. Among recent examples is the case against the Russian director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk over their performance of
Finist, the Brave Falcon. Both are being held in pretrial detention as part of the case over “justifying terrorism,” even though we are talking about a theatrical performance whose meaning is totally opposite, and besides, the play had been staged in Russian chamber theaters for several years.
New repressive practicesThere have been three key changes in political persecution in the past year and a half:
- A sharp quantitative increase (from dozens of cases to hundreds);
- A shift in the qualification of “crimes” from administrative to criminal offenses. Whereas the punishment does not exceed 30 days of jail for the former, for the latter it can be many years (at least two months) of imprisonment (in cases where a fine is imposed as a punishment the amount is comparable for these two types of offenses: in certain cases, it can go up to the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars);
- The use of “special” offenses in the criminal code for political crimes. Previously, mainly general offenses were used – for example, charges of fraud were brought against “politicals.” An exception was violations at rallies, for which a special punishment was introduced in 2001 that began to be applied widely only after 2012. Recently, oppositionists have been accused of spreading false information about the Russian army.
At first glance, these changes boil down to the regime becoming more repressive, pursuing a policy of zero tolerance with regard to protest and public dissent. Against this backdrop, law enforcement agencies are increasingly identifying and prosecuting “political criminals.”
However, a more repressive regime does not necessarily imply a corresponding change in the law enforcement system. It is a big and inert system, with about a hundred thousand people involved only just at the level of investigation, not to mention those who stand watch at rallies, escort suspects, and so on. All of them have to be explained the new rules of the game. In other words,