Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/07/2012 (3967 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Every country has laws that constrain political freedom. Anti-capitalist protesters get moved on in London and New York. The Canadian province of Quebec, beset by student unrest, has passed a law imposing daily fines of as much as $35,000 on the organizers. Lawmakers try to stop online piracy and jihadist propaganda. Defamation, at least in theory, is a criminal offense in many democracies. American law says the activity of foreign agents must be registered and disclosed.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia is taking what looks like, superficially, a similar approach. Four new laws are passed or pending. One introduces big fines for participants and organizers of illegal protests. Another creates a blacklist, as yet unpublished, of “harmful” websites. A third recriminalizes defamation. A fourth makes nonprofit groups declare any funding from abroad and, if they accept any such funding, label themselves as “foreign agents.” That fits with Putin’s anti-Western rhetoric, portraying Russia as a besieged fortress and his opponents as the puppets of its foreign enemies.

Even if Russia had the rule of law and a vigorous free press, these laws would be cause for concern because they are loosely worded and have been rushed through with much official venom. What makes them worse is the way Russia’s state agencies and public institutions work.

They chiefly serve their own interests, acting with impunity and taking political orders from the top. That stokes corruption. It also explains the feebleness of the investigations into the many abuses that have marked Putin’s time in power, such as the death in prison of Sergei Magnitsky, a whistle-blowing lawyer. Russians have every reason to fear the new laws will be interpreted selectively and vindictively.

Putin is trying simultaneously to deter his opponents and to show his hardline supporters that he still has the will to crack down and can get the Duma to do his bidding. He is also signaling weakness, however.

In the past, buoyed by huge popularity and surging oil and gas revenues, he could afford to ignore the opposition’s sparsely attended demonstrations. He could discount pinpricks of media criticism, which were easily outweighed by favorable coverage on national television.

Now the regime’s business model — based on gathering and sharing the spoils of power, chiefly natural-resource rents — is under strain. For the urban middle classes, official lawlessness is a big irritant. The media’s fawning coverage of Putin grates. So do signs of their rulers’ arrogance, such as endemic vote-rigging and the casual job-swap between Putin and his predecessor, Dmitry Medvedev, now prime minister.

The Russian authorities’ inability to respond to the new mood is debilitating. Many inside the regime know that it needs to change, but many also fear the implications: A free press or independent prosecutors would ask dangerous questions about the corruption and violence of the past 12 years.

As a result, Russia is heading fast in the wrong direction — one that takes it closer to the Soviet past and away from the European mainstream where it belongs.

This is unlikely to work for very long. Harsh measures, such as jailing opposition leaders, risk sparking more protests. A full-scale crackdown, for example, using violence to disperse large numbers of demonstrators, is still a long way off. Indeed it may well be beyond the powers of Russia’s corrupt, incompetent and demoralized police and interior-ministry forces.

Even partial repression at home, perhaps matched by aggression or mischief-making abroad, would be nasty while it lasted, however. Outsiders are right to worry, but the biggest victims are inside the country.

Russians want dignity, justice and truth. Putin’s ill-considered laws and bullying words are a poor substitute.