A group of leading Russian lawyers on Tuesday asked the country’s top court to declare unconstitutional a law banning criticism of the armed forces, in a rare display of defiance of draconian censorship imposed by the Kremlin in the wake of the invasion of Russia. Ukraine.
The complaint, filed by three lawyers and supported by ten others, most of whom are still in Russia, asked the Constitutional Court to strike down the measure, which has emerged as the Kremlin’s most effective tool to quell dissent. oppress the country.
“This law was passed with only one purpose: to suppress anti-war activism,” said Violetta Fitsner, a lawyer at OVD-Info, a Russian human rights organization, and one of the complainants. “Such restrictions cannot exist in a democratic society.”
The censorship laws effectively ban anything that doesn’t match the Kremlin’s portrayal of the war, which continues to call it a “special military operation.” They have virtually silenced the debate in Russia.
Since the invasion, thousands of activists, journalists and other professionals have left the country. Many others have been arrested, including lawyers, but despite the risks, some have stayed and continued their work.
Other measures have broadened the definition of treason, giving authorities more leeway to use such charges more or less arbitrarily. Last week, Russia’s parliament also passed a law introducing life sentences for treason.
Russian lawmakers have also criminalized the loosely defined offense of “confidential cooperation” with a representative of a foreign state or organization that undermines national security.
More than 6,500 Russians have been punished for “discrediting” the Russian military since the law was passed by the Russian parliament eight days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the lawyers said. People who break the law will be fined for a first offense, but conviction for a subsequent offense within a year can lead to up to five years in prison.
The petition to the Supreme Court came as United Nations officials in Geneva urged fighters in the Ukraine conflict to treat prisoners of war humanely. Their statement was released after audio clips appeared on social media claiming to encourage the soldiers to carry out summary executions.
The United Nations has not verified the authenticity of the statements, but the reports may still “provoke or encourage summary executions of prisoners of war or those outside combat,” said Ravina Shamdasani, the spokeswoman for the United Nations human rights chief.
Such orders, if issued or carried out, would amount to a war crime, she said, as would any statement that troops would not take prisoners.
When it comes to Russian censorship laws, authorities have drawn a blurred line between what is acceptable and what can lead to administrative or criminal prosecution.
For example, more than 19,500 Russians have been detained at anti-war rallies since the invasion began, according to OVD Info, which tracks such arrests.
But others were fined or faced criminal charges for more private acts, such as questioning official accounts of the war in a private phone call or discussing it on messaging apps or with friends at a cafe, the rights group said.
On Monday, a Moscow court sentenced a former police officer, Semiel Vedel, to seven years in prison for questioning the official version of the war in a private phone conversation with his colleagues, according to Zona Media, a Russian news website. Authorities said they tapped his phones looking for information about another criminal case.
Earlier this month, another Moscow court sentenced Vladimir Kara-Murza, a leading critic of President Vladimir V. Putin, to 25 years in a maximum-security penal colony after being convicted of treason for criticizing the invasion.
In December, an opposition politician, Ilya Yashin, was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to “spreading false information” about atrocities committed by Russian forces in the Ukrainian city of Bucha in February and March.
And last month, in what some say was a signal of an even more serious crackdown, authorities arrested a Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, on what they said was a suspicion of espionage. The Journal says the allegation is baseless and that the United States has designated Mr Gershkovich as wrongfully detained.
The complaint filed on Tuesday was filed on behalf of more than 20 Russians who were fined for criticizing the invasion. One of them, Maksim Filippov, was fined $650 for holding a poster in central Moscow that read “Give peace a chance”.
The lawyers have already exhausted all other legal means to overturn the legislation, and hope the filing will at least bring attention to the issue. In their complaint, they argue that the law violates constitutional rights of freedom of speech and assembly and also discriminates against critics of the war.
The court must respond to the petition. Such rulings usually take several months.
The lawyers say they also plan to file similar complaints about other measures imposed by the Kremlin after the invasion, including the criminalization of spreading what the law considers “false information” about the conflict.
“I want people who have been prosecuted for their anti-war stance in Russia to know that they are not alone and that we are ready to fight for their rights despite all the state’s repression and intimidation,” said Ms Fitsner, the OVD. . -Information lawyer.
Grigory Vaypan, a Russian lawyer who also worked on the complaint at the Constitutional Court, said the laws passed by the Russian government since the invasion “criminalized dissent as such”.
“This was a reincarnation of the worst Soviet laws that we studied in history books and law schools,” said Mr. Vaypan. “I could not have imagined that they would become a reality again in ten years.”
Reporting contributed by Farnaz Fassihi, Gulsin Harman And Nick Cumming-Bruce.
