Russia criminalizes war protests

I thought this deserved it's own thread.  I normally don't allow posting whole articles, but since they could possibly be taken down soon, it's makes a little more sense.  We all knew this tactic would be Putin's desire.  He's pretty easy to predict.

The bills described in the text have already been swiftly and unanimously adopted in the second and third readings, will be considered by the Federation Council today, signed by the president and will come into force on March 5.

https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2022/03/04/nepogreshimyi-sapog

A scandalous bill amending the Criminal Code, punishable by imprisonment for up to 15 years for “public dissemination under the guise of reliable reports of deliberately false information containing data on the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in order to protect the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens, to maintain international peace and security”, on March 4, at the second reading, they want to quickly supplement the norm, which allows declaring illegal any anti-war protest.

However, it was impossible to imagine many other things happening in the last days.

It is proposed to introduce Article 280.3 into the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and punish “public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in order to protect the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens, maintain international peace and security”, including “public calls to prevent the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”. forces of the Russian Federation for the indicated purposes.

It is proposed to apply criminal punishment if prior to that, during the year, a citizen was brought to administrative responsibility for a “similar act”. And punish with a fine of 100 thousand to a million rubles or imprisonment for up to five years.

It is proposed to establish the mentioned administrative responsibility (the law on supplementing the Code of Administrative Offenses with Article 20.3.3 - public actions aimed at "discrediting the use of the Armed Forces" - will be adopted on the same day, March 4) in the form of a fine from 30 to 50 thousand rubles for citizens.

This means that they want to put almost any anti-war actions and appeals outside the law, and it does not matter: on the street, on the Internet or in the media.

Any statement for the cessation of That-What-Cannot-Be-Named (and can only be called a "special operation") - for a ceasefire, for stopping the offensive, for the withdrawal of troops, and so on - can easily be interpreted as "calls to prevent the use" of the army .

And petitions for stopping the “special operation” (the anti-war petition created by Lev Ponomarev was signed by more than a million people, the petition by Yabloko - almost 90 thousand) can fall under this.

And the collective appeals of cultural figures, scientists, doctors, lawyers, artists, urban planners ...

And the slogan "No to war!" becomes practically prohibited.

Well, any public doubts about the correctness of the "special operation" or an expression of sympathy for the deaths of civilians during it can be interpreted as "discrediting the use."

At the same time, in the case of the second “violation”, not a fine will be applied, but a criminal punishment under Article 280.3.

There is no doubt that all this will be adopted and put into action promptly and to applause.

But think about it: in our country, where the mantra for many years was “if only there was no war!” and where calls to unleash an aggressive war are justly declared a criminal offense (Article 354 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the real punishment is not at all for such calls, constantly heard on federal television channels and from the lips of various kinds of politicians.

They are punished for the exact opposite - an anti-war protest.

Until recently, this was unthinkable.