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Moscow Times
April 27, 2004
Putin Pens Revisions to Bill on Public Rallies
By Caroline McGregor
Staff Writer

President Vladimir Putin took pen to paper Monday to tell the State Duma exactly what changes he would like to see made to a bill banning rallies in virtually any public place.

After it was passed in a first reading on March 31, the bill was widely condemned as an attack on constitutionally protected democratic freedoms, and Putin himself disapprovingly characterized it as "unhealthy," even "illegal."

The president's requested changes would allow protests outside government buildings, lower the age requirement for organizers, and shorten the period of advance notice needed to be given for some events. The changes are also meant to make it harder for bureaucrats to prohibit gatherings.

Putin, however, saw no need to scrap the bill wholesale, only for certain clarification. The bill has at its heart the guarantee of citizens' right to assembly, and its concept "does not raise objection," the Kremlin said in a statement posted on its web site along with the two-page text of revisions sent to the Duma.

If people remain unhappy with the bill, Putin does not want to hear about it. His edited version would leave presidential residences off-limits for demonstrations, along with courts and jails. Hazardous materials facilities -- often targeted by environmental protesters -- energy pipelines, railroads and border areas also remain on the blacklist. Many places banned in the Duma's version, including schools, hospitals, concert halls and embassies, would be permitted.

Putin's other changes include lowering the age requirement for rally organizers from 18 to 16. He also said that authorities needed to be notified of pickets only three days in advance. Rallies, gatherings, marches and demonstrations, meanwhile, will continue to require 10 days' notice.

The law is officially the law "on gatherings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets."

How a gathering differs from a rally or demonstration remains a vague point. Putin proposed that a gathering should be "joint presence of citizens for collective discussion of socially significant questions in a specially intended or designated place."

Some activists raised concern that this wording gives officials too much room to narrowly interpret what constitutes a "specially intended or designated place."

Perhaps anticipating this, Putin fully rewrote a section to make it more difficult for law enforcement officials to arbitrarily refuse a citizen's request to hold a public event.

In the Duma's version, events that were deemed to violate "moral norms" could be forbidden. Putin's version requires bureaucrats to send any concerns they have "in written form and without delay" to organizers.

The bill sailed through the Duma a month ago on the back of the United Russia majority, with 294 deputies voting in favor. The pro-Kremlin party had justified the bill by saying a law was needed to replace the current legal framework of presidential decrees that now governs demonstrations and leaves much in the hands of local authorities.

Representatives from 189 human rights and environmental NGOs sent a letter to Putin and Duma leaders in early April, saying the bill violated Article 31 of the Constitution guaranteeing citizens the right to gather peacefully. Activists and politicians promised to appeal to the Constitutional Court if Putin signed it into law.

Many observers speculated that Putin's government had not anticipated such a furor, because support for the bill evaporated overnight. While United Russia was reviled in the press as being indifferent to democracy, Putin capitalized on the opportunity to appear enlightened in contrast to parliament. "To whom is it necessary today to limit the rights and freedoms of citizens to demonstrate and march?" Putin told members of his government on April 13. "There shouldn't be any such unhealthy restrictions in this respect."

Two days later, he sternly told Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov that banning rallies outside government buildings would be "illegal." During their televised one-on-one meeting, Gryzlov responded that the bill was a work in progress and that major amendments before the second and third readings had been intended from the start.

Putin on Monday continued to lecture deputies on democracy, reminding them that the European Convention on Human Rights could not be neglected when regulating public activity.

A staff assistant for the Public and Religious Organizations Committee, which has custody of the bill, said a discussion will be held Wednesday with ministry and administration officials and civil society representatives. Some 400 amendments have been submitted for consideration from all branches of the government, she said, and a second reading is likely near the end of May.