Last year, the Russian parliament passed a record number of 653 bills, most of which concerned the criminal law. This is according to the Russian independent news site Mediazona, which has analyzed all the changes in the law together with the human rights organization No to Torture.
– The changes made to the penal code in 2022 make it possible to call that year the most repressive in Russia’s modern history, says Elena Yurishina, analyst at the organization No to Torture.
The repressions began long before the war
According to the organization No to Torture, the Russian criminal law began to move in the wrong direction as early as 2012. Before that, the country was steadily moving towards a democratization where citizens had many rights and opportunities to scrutinize the legal system.
– In 1996, when Russia was ready to join the Council of Europe, the country was open to democracy and changed many laws to be in line with how it was in Europe. And that development continued until 2012, says Elena Jurisjina.
But in the year that Putin was re-elected as president and huge protests broke out in the country, the criminal code began to change dramatically to silence the citizens. Among other things, a law on foreign agents was introduced that could appoint an organization or person who opposed the power in Russia as a foreign agent.
Hundreds charged with the new laws
Since the start of the war, nearly 20,000 people have been arrested in Russia for anti-war protests. Today, roughly 500 people have been prosecuted under the new laws that were passed last year, and many more are awaiting prosecution. This according to the Russian human rights organization OVD-Info.
The law most widely used to prosecute Russian citizens who protest against the Russian state is spreading false information about the Russian army. The opposition politician Ilja Jashin is one of the nearly 100 people who have already been charged under that law.
See more examples in the video above.
Seven bizarre verdicts in Russia