CIS

Home page

CIS

Medvedev boosts KGB successor

29 July 2010 18:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a new law to boost Russia’s security service, restoring a Soviet-era practice of issuing warnings to people it believes are about to commit a crime, the Kremlin said on Thursday, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com website.
Critics say the law could be used to intimidate journalists and opposition groups and undermines Medvedev’s bid to portray himself as a liberal alternative to the tightly-controlled system built by mentor Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The law gives the Federal Security Service or FSB, formerly headed by Putin, the right to issue warnings to people "whose acts create the conditions for the committing of a crime," the Kremlin said in a statement.
Critics say it fails to spell out the legal consequences of receiving a warning and its vagueness will invite abuse.
"This is a huge political mistake by Medvedev," veteran rights activist Lev Ponomaryov told Reuters. "This will alienate huge swathes of potential liberal supporters, who Medvedev has been trying to win over."
Since taking office two years ago as Putin’s anointed successor, Medvedev has repeatedly called for more openness with civil society and democracy in Russia, though human rights groups and diplomats say little has changed in practice.
"This shows once and for all that Putin and Medvedev are one and the same," said Ponomaryov.
The FSB was formed from the remains of the Soviet-era KGB, which was broken up in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed. Its influence grew greatly when Putin became president in 2000 and ordered it to lead the fight against Islamist rebels.
Rights groups and opposition journalists say the government also uses the FSB to exert pressure on its critics.
Supporters of the bill say it will reduce crime and help people to realize what they are doing is potentially illegal.
"It doesn’t turn the FSB into some new edition of the all powerful KGB," Mikhail Margelov, a senator for the ruling United Russia party, said in a statement. "It just creates a legal framework for practices that have long-since been used."
The bill was watered down after its first reading, when it drew an outcry from normally loyal opposition parties.
It still allows for punishment of up to 15 days in prison for refusing the orders of an FSB officer, but prevents the officers from leveling it against people who ignore the new warnings -- a combination that critics said might have allowed the FSB to arrest anyone without court sanction.
But Lev Gudkov, a member of the Fair Russia party which almost never opposes Kremlin-backed laws, said changes to the bill failed to allay opposition concerns.
"No one knows exactly what this law will mean in practice," said Gudkov. "It could be used against anyone they want."