#13 - JRL 8149 - JRL Home
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 09
From: "Nicolai N. Petro" <kolya@uri.edu>
Subject: Russian parliament expands meeting rights

Seth Mydans' report "Russian Parliament Moves Toward a Ban on Public Demonstrations," (New York Times, April 1, 2004) sounds a false alarm. It inaccurately state that the law "would ban demonstrations in most public places." In fact, the proposed legislation only affects meetings that are "directly in front of a building," a rather vague formulation that has aroused the concern of a number of deputies and, by all accounts, will be revised in the final version of the legislation.

Of greater significance, although Mydans fails to mention this, is that in the same law the Duma drastically narrowed the ability of government authorities to prevent demonstrations by redefining the legal requirement from one of "obtaining permission for" a public manifestation to simply "informing authorities" of their intent to do so within a time frame of 10-15 days prior to the event.

With best wishes,

Professor Nicolai N. Petro
Department of Political Science
Washburn Hall
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881 (USA).