Russia: ‘Stalinist’ treason law reviewed but Markelov murder marks new low point

Moscow Helsinki Group’s Lyudmila Alekseyeva (4th from left) fears a new law on treason will further stifle dissent.

President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered a review of a controversial bill, championed by Prime Minister Valdimir Putin, which aims to widen the definitions of espionage and treason. Civil society and human rights groups expressed alarm at provisions in the proposed legislation under which passing information to foreign organizations could be interpreted as treasonous. 

It is “legislation in the spirit of Stalin and Hitler,” human rights activists complained. The Moscow Helsinki Group’s Lyudmila Alekseyeva suggested that the law is being introduced in anticipation of growing dissent at a time of economic turmoil. “When, in spite of the mounting crisis, all the burdens are placed on the shoulders of ordinary citizens, you don’t have to be a genius to guess that some unrest might occur,” she said.

One recent episode suggests that the authorities are already acutely sensitive to the notion of the economic crisis generating political and social unrest:   

When Russian sociologist Yevgeny Gontmakher, writing in the newspaper Vedomosti, outlined a “Novocherkassk 2009″ scenario (a reference to the 1962 strike at the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Factory) in which massive job layoffs, precipitated by falling oil prices, would cause social unrest, both the paper and author were sternly warned that they could be prosecuted for “inciting extremism.”

Human rights groups are anxious and feeling vulnerable after the murder of Stanislav Markelov, one of Russia’s leading human rights defenders, and Anastasia Baburova, a 25-year-old freelance journalist with Novaya Gazeta.

Chillingly, the government has failed to comment on the murders: “Not a stock expression of regret, no condolences for the family, and certainly not a heartfelt pledge to eradicate this kind of killing from modern Russia, and bring the killers to justice,” notes Russia Profile.

“Putin and Medvedev have not publicly sided with the victims of a terrorist assault in the center of Moscow, apparently since the victims are opponents of the regime,” writes Novaya Gazeta’s Pavel Felgenhauer.

“These things are done by those who want fear and nervosity in society,” Andrei Stolbunov, a fellow human rights lawyer, adds. “There are both external and internal forces interested in this. It’s a kind of political terror. You can explode a bomb and kill a lot of people or you can kill just one. But it has to be a public figure. Lawyers are good candidates.”

Markelov’s murder marks a new low point, highlighting the openly brazen climate of impunity, notes international lawyer Robert Amsterdam, in a system “which allows murders as a function of its own continued existence.”

Medvedev’s move has raised speculation about renewed tensions within Russia’s ‘tandemocracy‘, shortly after the president criticized Putin’s response to the financial crisis.

The prime minister’s economic policy is focused on erecting protectionist barriers around manufacturing industries, injecting money into “privileged” banks, and securing Gazprom access to Central Asian resources and European markets, notes Gavel Baev. But the ad hoc and selective implementation of anti-crisis measures is proving counter-productive, forestalling essential modernization, and is driven by political rather than economic imperatives, he writes:

This economic policy, however, is a natural product of Putin’s state-building policy focused on maintaining the monopoly of power by the ruling elite under the guise of stability. The pressure of the crisis inevitably erodes the foundations of this self-serving regime, so experts keep looking for signs of a split between groups of elites forming around the two “poles” in the tandem leadership.