VI. Restrictions on Public Assemblies

On May 22, 2012, barely one month after Vladimir Putin’s inauguration, the State Duma began debating a new assembly law, Law No. 65-FZ, that significantly increased the fines for violating rules for holding public events and imposed various restrictions on organizers and participants of public protests.[160] Seventeen days later, the law was fully adopted and signed into law by President Putin.[161] A wave of international and domestic criticism followed the adoption of the law, with critics pointing to how the law violated rights and contradicted Russia’s international obligations.

A number regions followed suit, adopting additional regulations on public assemblies. For example, in December 2012, the Moscow City Duma amended the municipal law regulating public assemblies by prohibiting single-person protests in Moscow if they are “united by the same organizer and the same purpose.” Additionally, the law prohibited cars decorated with white ribbons or other “protest symbols” from driving on the Garden Ring.[162] White ribbon had become a symbol of the protest movement, and in one instance in February 2012 thousands of people wearing white ribbons formed a chain around Moscow’s Garden Ring Road, with cars and trolleybuses decked in white ribbons honking in support.[163]

Freedom of Assembly in Russia Prior to June 2012

As noted above, from November 2011 through April 2012, massive, peaceful demonstrations took place in Russia without undue police interference. However, as a general rule, even prior to the new assembly law, the right to freedom of assembly in Russia was problematic.[164] The authorities, particularly in Moscow, regularly used arbitrary pretexts to deny requests for peaceful protests; the courts applied excessive penalties for protest organizers and participants; and riot police used violence to disperse peaceful protests.[165]

The right to freedom of assembly is regulated by article 31 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the Federal Law on Assemblies, Rallies, Demonstrations, Marches and Picketing (the “assembly law”).

The law’s notification procedure obliges organizers to inform the authorities about their intention to hold a public gathering as well as provide information on the site and the estimated number of participants. If a permit is denied, authorities must offer an alternate venue or time for the event within three days.[166]   In practice Russian authorities often refuse to permit protests, using various formal pretexts and pressuring organizers to accept alternative remote locations, which in turn lead them to hold unauthorized demonstrations and face administrative penalties for violating the rules or for not complying with police orders.

For example, following the March 4, 2012 presidential elections, the authorities refused to authorize demonstrations protesting the election results in St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod, and police violently dispersed peaceful, unauthorized protests, beating dozens and arresting hundreds of people.[167] 

In Nizhny Novgorod, organizers requested official authorization for the peaceful rally on March 10, but authorities denied the request, citing “public safety” concerns and did not offer an alternative site. Out of approximately 200 people who gathered in Nizhny Novgorod’s city center to publicly protest the election results, 80 were arrested on the spot. The authorities later charged some with disobeying police orders but later released most of them and dropped charges against them. [168]

The so-called Strategy-31 rallies in defense of freedom of assembly have been taking place on the 31st day of each month with 31 days in many Russian cities for the last three years. Many  such rallies have been suppressed by police and led to detention of organizers and participants. [169]

Gay prides continue to be banned in Russia, despite the October 2010 ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, which found Russia in violation of freedom of assembly for repeatedly denying activists the right to hold gay rights protests in 2006, 2007, and 2008. [170]

Russia’s Legal Obligations on Freedom of Assembly

Russia is a party to a number of human rights treaties – including the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – that impose obligations on the government to respect the right to free peaceful assembly.[171] Any requirement to obtain authorization for a peaceful protest cannot be used to infringe upon the substance of freedom of assembly that is of central importance to a democratic society.

In March 2012 the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission), an advisory body of the Council of Europe, adopted an opinion on the assembly law. The opinion criticized certain provisions of the law, including the requirement to notify the authorities about a public event and the blanket restrictions on the time and places of public events. The commission recommended that Russian authorities:

• Be guided by the “presumption in favor of holding assemblies” while refraining from “depriving the organisers of the right to hold an assembly on the grounds of a failure to agree on any changes to the format of an assembly….” [172]
• Alter the format of a public event only in cases where “there are compelling reasons to do so”;
• Allow peaceful, spontaneous, and urgent assemblies and bring the grounds for restricting public assemblies in line with international standards; [173]
• Reduce the obligations of assembly organizers to uphold public order to encompass only the “exercise of due care.” [174]

The June 2012 Amendments

Law No. 65-FZ did not address concerns flagged by the Venice Commission. Instead, as noted above, the amendments significantly increased the fines for violating rules for holding public events. The maximum penalty for individuals was increased from 5,000 rubles (approximately US$165) to 300,000 rubles (approximately $9,700),[175] a prohibitive amount given the average Russian monthly income of 26,489 rubles ($880).[176]

The new law also banned from acting as organizers of a public events persons with outstanding convictions for offenses “against the foundations of the constitutional system and the security of the state or offences against public safety” as well as persons who have been prosecuted twice or more within a year for violation of laws governing public events.[177]

Law No. 65-FZ also:

• Adds community service to the range of penalties for violations connected with organizing and conducting public events;[178]
• Places on event organizers the burden of financial liability for any damages caused by event participants that involved violations of public order;[179]
• Introduces the concept of sites “specifically designated” for public events;[180]
• Introduces a ban on wearing face masks or otherwise concealing faces of participants of public events;
• Introduces a “minimum permissible distance” of 50 meters between persons who participate in individual protests or “pickets” united by “a single concept”;[181]
• Increases from three months to one year the statute of limitations for violations of the law governing public events.[182]

Implementation of the Assembly Law

Almost immediately after the law entered into force the authorities started applying it, in particular to the political opposition and other activists.

In June 2012, Oleg Kozlovsky, Vsevolod Chernozub, and Anastasia Rybachenko, activists with the opposition movement Solidarnost, notified the Moscow authorities of their intent to organize a gathering of up to 100 to protest the public assembly amendments.[183] Municipal authorities refused to allow the event, citing the amendments prohibiting persons who have been prosecuted twice or more within a year for violating laws governing public events from organizing such gatherings.[184] On June 16 Kozlovsky and his colleagues appealed the refusal to Moscow’s Tagansky District Court, which on July 16 ruled in favor of the municipality.

Oleg Kozlovsky told Human Rights Watch that by trying to obtain permission for the event, the activists mainly sought to “test the system.” Kozlovsky is planning to file a complaint to the European Court of the Human Rights.[185]

On June 22, 2013, a district court in Astrakhan fined local politician Oleg Shein 20,000 rubles ($655) for organizing an unsanctioned protest.[186] In a media interview, Shein said that he attempted to get official authorization for the protest, which involved several hundred people and was peaceful, but authorities denied the request and did not offer him an alternative site. He also noted the fine of 20,000 rubles amounted to four minimum monthly wages in Russia.[187]

On August 17, 2012, the Kazan City Court sentenced Rustem Safin, a representative of a local Islamic center Al Ihlas, and Nail Nabiullin, the head of the Union of Tatar Youth Azatlyik, to fines of 20,000 rubles each for organizing an unauthorized meeting. The charges stemmed from Safin and Nabiullin holding an outdoor press conference concerning the recent assassination attempt on the life of a local Islamic leader.[188]

On October 27, 2012, political opposition activist Alexey Navalny was detained by police after he staged a one-person protest against police torture in front of the headquarters of Russia’s Federal Security Service in Moscow.[189] Under Russian law, a one-person protest does not require official permission. Navalny stated in court that after he finished the protest, a group of journalists followed him to ask questions about the nature of the protest, at which point he was detained and charged with organizing an unauthorized rally.[190] On October 30 Moscow’s Basmanny District Court fined Navalny 30,000 rubles for “violating the order of conducting public gatherings.” Navalny appealed the decision and in January filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court of Russia against the new legislation. The complaint is currently pending.[191]

Impact on Freedom of Assembly

In February 2013 Russia’s Constitutional Court ruled that the ban on individuals with multiple administrative convictions related to organizing public events did not violate their rights and did not find the extension of the statute of limitations for violating laws governing public events unconstitutional.[192]

At the same time, the court ruled that the minimum fine for a violation that did not lead to inflicting damage to health and property must be lowered. The court noted in its decision that the fines were disproportionate and could lead to persons being fined for minor misdemeanors in amounts that frequently exceeded their average monthly salaries.[193] The court also ruled that, until the new law was amended, courts could issue lower fines for the specific administrative offenses than those stipulated in the law.

In addition, the court held that compulsory community service be imposed only as punishment for actions that resulted in inflicting damage to health or property and ruled against a provision of the law that introduced liability of the organizers of public events for harmful actions of its participants, regardless of whether they were guilty of inflicting harm or exercised due care in organizing the event. The court noted that the executive and law enforcement authorities should not discriminate against public events’ participants and organizers, regardless of their political views.[194]

Finally, the court ruled against the provision of the law introducing common sites specifically designated for public events, citing a lack of legislative regulation on the federal level that would ensure equal conditions for citizens in all parts of Russia to realize their right to freedom of assembly.

The court did not find that the law was adopted in violation of rules of parliamentary procedure.

Writing in a separate opinion, Constitutional Court justices Vladimir Yarostlavtsev called the public assembly law unconstitutional and cited serious procedural violations during the process of its adoption.[195] Two more judges of the Constitutional Court, Sergey Kazantsev and Yuri Danilov, also issued separate opinions calling for the law to be repealed.[196]

In a March 2013 opinion, the Venice Commission found that the amendments represent “a step backward for the protection of freedom of assembly in the Russian Federation” and that implementation “may result in infringements of the fundamental right to peaceful assembly guaranteed by the Russian Constitution and by the European Convention on Human Rights.”[197] The commission found that while the Constitutional Court ruling addressed certain problematic aspects of the law, it did not solve all of its problems. 

The commission urged Russia “to revise and lower drastically the penalties,” which it said are “excessive for administrative offences with no violence involved and will undoubtedly have a considerable chilling effect on potential organisers and participants in peaceful public events.”

The commission further recommended repealing the provisions which put the burden of financial liability for any damages caused by participants of a public event (which led to violations of public order) on the organizers of the event, ban the wearing face masks during public events, and ban entire “categories of people for breaches of a variety of criminal and administrative offences” from organizing public events.