Duma effectively abolishes right to assembly

The Russian parliament on Tuesday tightened the laws governing the right to assembly in the country. For the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the step "is typical of Vladimir Putin's style of rule: namely despotism in a legalistic guise. While the pro-regime media are touting the fact that on their way through parliament the maximum penalties contained in the original draft law were considerably reduced as proof of liberality, a mass of regulations were added that de facto abolish the right to assembly. This right had already been more a matter of theory than practice, but even that is obviously too much of a risk for Putin after he was forced to see how quickly theory can become practice in the months preceding his re-election. The judiciary now has an instrument at its disposal with which it can even hold the organisers of demonstrations accountable for drunken demonstrators."

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