How (and why) Russian authorities are erasing the difference between terrorists, book publishers, Navalny supporters, and many others

How (and why) are Russian authorities erasing the difference between terrorists, book publishers, Navalny supporters, and many others?

Our editor Aleksey Polikhovich explains:

“Originally, Rosfinmonitoring’s list was created as a tool to combat the financing of extremism and terrorism. Inclusion on it seriously restricts a person’s financial transactions; they are effectively shut out of the modern digital economy.

There are now more than 20,000 people on the list. Clearly, there are people there who committed genuinely dangerous crimes. But the charts in the dataset show that at the same time about 13% of the people on the list are also in our database of politically motivated persecution.

And if we look at the dynamics of recent years, especially after the start of the war, we see an alarming picture. The number of people being added to the list has risen sharply, and the number of politically persecuted people entered there has also grown significantly. There has been explosive growth with respect to certain groups: minors, women, pensioners, and people born in Ukraine.

It seems to us that this dynamic indirectly indicates the politicization of the mechanism itself: the state is increasingly using the list as a tool of pressure.

The reason lies, among other things, in the general erosion of the concepts of ‘extremism’ and ‘terrorism.’ The state is interpreting them ever more broadly: FBK, LGBTQ+ initiatives, all of this is now ‘extremism.’ We can see this in the case of the book publishers as well, who are being persecuted over literature on topics the state has designated as ‘extremist.’

And a court verdict is not required for someone to be added to the list. A person can be placed on it simply because they are a suspect, and their financial rights are immediately restricted, while they are also stigmatized, effectively being equated with a terrorist.”

🔗 Read more about Rosfinmonitoring’s list of terrorists and extremists in our regularly updated dataset.

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