In case you missed it, Russian MPs have spent the past several years debating amendments to media and information legislation which would allow the state to give individual citizens the legal status of “foreign agents”. This month, though, these amendments were passed quickly and without deeper discussion.
Back in 2012, legislation was passed that limited the rights of NGOs. Many of them – from the Memorial association, which gathers information on the victims of Stalin’s Terror to Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, which publishes information on the theft of state funds – have since been labelled as foreign agents, listed in a Justice Ministry register and experienced all the issues and problems appropriate to their status.
Now it’s the turn of Russian citizens who have somehow displeased the authorities.
