Moscow Times - 06.05.2002

 

The Moscow Times

Extremism Bill Riles Human Rights Activists

By Robin Munro

Human rights advocates spoke out Tuesday against a presidential bill on extremism due to be considered by the State Duma this week, saying its definition of the term was so broad that it would enable law enforcement agencies to abuse their powers while failing to curb nationalist and racist violence.

"The presidential bill on extremism does not mention xenophobia or anti-Semitism per se. But the bill does give extremely broad and vague definitions of extremist activity," Sergei Smirnov, a rights activist, wrote in his assessment of the bill.

For example, a definition of extremism given in Article 1 is any "illegal activity" aimed at "hindering the legal activities" of federal, regional or local government bodies. This could render groups such as Greenpeace, anti-globalists and demonstrators holding unsanctioned protests vulnerable to relatively severe punishment, Lev Levinson, an aide to Duma Deputy Sergei Kovalyov, said at a news conference.

Moreover, in its current form, the bill allows authorities to disband or cancel the registration of organizations suspected of extremism. Although such a move requires court approval, the official body in charge of registering the organization in question can suspend its activities pending a court hearing, which can be put off for months, the rights advocates said.

"I don't think the European Court of Justice or other international legal organizations would approve," Valentin Gefter, head of the Moscow-based Human Rights Institute, told the same news conference. Gefter added that the bill was significantly different than anti-extremism laws in other countries.

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Yury Chaika urged legislators to pass the law.

While he acknowledged that his agency would be willing to consider amendments -- the bulk of which get made during a second reading -- Chaika said the main thing for now was to get the ball rolling by passing the first draft.

"After this law is passed, law enforcement bodies will obtain an effective tool in the fight against displays of extremism," Interfax quoted him as saying.

The bill, which was drafted by the presidential administration, and accompanying amendments to other laws are to undergo a first reading Thursday, Pavel Krasheninnikov, chairman of the Duma's legislation committee, told Interfax.

Krasheninnikov said last week that he hoped the bill could pass through all three readings by the end of the spring session this month.

Krasheninnikov's deputy, Valery Plotnikov, said the bill is necessary to make up for the lack of legislation explicitly dealing with extremism or extremist organizations.

"The laws that do deal with extremism are spread throughout a lot of different legislative documents," Plotnikov said in a telephone interview.

"The purpose of this bill is to formalize what is meant by extremism, which organizations are extremist and how to deal with those responsible for founding those organizations," he said.

Levinson, Kovalyov and Gefter disagreed, however.

"Existing laws are absolutely capable of dealing with such 'antisocial actions,'" Gefter said. In fact, many of the activities classified as extremism in the new bill are already considered criminal offenses under existing legislation -- most notably, the act of inciting ethnic hatred, a crime that is difficult to prove and seldom leads to prosecution.

Kovalyov added that part of the problem is laxness by police, prosecutors and the Federal Security Service, who tend to view racially or ethnically motivated violence as the work of "hooligans" rather than extremists.