Authors

Polina Kurakina¹; Maria Nemova¹;  ¹ OVD-Info, Latvia

Discussion

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Russian authorities have passed many laws to suppress anti-war voices. As happens with more repressive regimes, the Russian regime, in order to enforce this hastily-enacted legislation “requires additional intelligence” (Bergemann, 2017). Attitudes to the war in Ukraine have split Russian society, and the state is making attempts to use supporters of the war to fight against dissidents. We consider such a situation also as a form of legal mobilization against the right to freedom of expression. 

Problem of denunciations is widely discussed in Russian society, largely due to the memory of Stalin's terror. We, as researchers and human rights activists, suggest that denunciations, despite not amounting to mass phenomenon, have a very important marginalizing effect and the effect of destroying trust and horizontal ties in society. The most egregious cases always call for public’s attention and undermine existing trust. 

 In October, 2022 police came to the school in Moscow and detained the fifth-grader Varya Galkina. This was due to a report from the school principal regarding her pro-Ukraine profile picture. This story is not a singular occurrence. In fact, there are many diverse examples of how denunciations were used against those with anti-war sentiments. All these are examples of how repressive legislation is mobilized against dissenters and to terrify them into isolation and silence.  

Using open databases of court decisions, case files, and surveys of those subjected to administrative prosecution, we will try to figure out what effects denunciations have at the micro-level social dynamics and how they are used by law enforcement agencies and courts. To narrow the scope of the study, we will limit ourselves to the study of practice under Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation on discrediting the armed forces.