And I'm in a white tailcoat

United Russia intends to remove religious organizations from the list of potential “foreign agents” by introducing technical amendments to the bill on NGOs before the second reading in the State Duma, the Vedomosti newspaper wrote on Tuesday. Today the State Duma Committee on Public Associations and Religious Organizations will consider amendments to the second reading.

“The amendments will be of a technical nature, the main one will concern religious organizations, which were also initially subject to the new law,” one of the authors of the bill, United Russia member Alexander Sidyakin, told the publication.

According to an administration official, this technical amendment is explained by the fact that religious organizations already operate under a special regime, regulated by a separate law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations,” and do not engage in politics.

As the newspaper writes, the bill will be adopted immediately in the second and third readings on July 13, and on July 18 it can already be considered by the Federation Council.

On the one hand, of course, it is good that at least someone will avoid repressive measures, on the other hand, it is significant that those organizations whose representatives approve of it are removed from the law, and those whose representatives have a sharply negative attitude towards it are not removed from the law. Both the heads of large charitable foundations (Ekaterina Chistyakova) and politicians (Boris Nemtsov, Garry Kasparov) spoke out against the law, but Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, who was responsible for society in the Moscow Patriarchate, fully approved of it.

“The adoption of such a law, in my opinion, will be a step in the right direction,” the priest told the Interfax-Religion portal after the first reading. According to Chaplin, society must clearly understand which NPOs enjoy the support of the people and receive assistance from them in the form of the state, Russian business, and major public organizations, and which ones are focused on foreign funding, and sometimes on foreign leadership, “whose position does not always coincide.” with the aspirations and thoughts about the future that our people have."

Meanwhile, according to Vedomosti, it is religious organizations that receive the most funds from abroad - more than 23 billion rubles in 2011, all other NGOs received about 9 billion. Church benefactors, obviously, always have aspirations that coincide with the thoughts of our people about the future.

But something else is more likely: the Moscow Patriarchate has finally turned into a department of power, which, as befits bureaucrats, resolutely supports all the initiatives of the authorities. Troublemakers are coming out to the square, branding “foreign agents”, and approving amendments to the law “On Information”.

The Presidential Council for Human Rights proposed to withdraw the amendments from consideration and organize a broad public discussion with the involvement of experts, since the new law essentially introduces censorship on the Internet. The Russian-language Wikipedia is closed today by decision of the community in protest against the proposed amendments, the second reading of which is taking place in the State Duma.

“These amendments could become the basis for real censorship on the Internet - the formation of a list of prohibited sites and IP addresses with their subsequent filtering,” the action organizers noted in their appeal. “Supporting these amendments claim that they are aimed exclusively against content like child pornography “and the like.” But adherence to the provisions and wording put forward for discussion would entail the creation in Russia of an analogue of the “Great Firewall of China,” they say. In their opinion , there is a high probability of “a worst-case scenario in which access to Wikipedia will soon be closed throughout the country.”

But representatives of the Patriarchate have a different opinion here: the head of the Information Department of the Patriarchate and at the same time a member of the Presidential Council, Vladimir Legoida, does not see any danger in the amendments, so he did not sign the council’s statement with arguments “against”.

Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church faction have perfectly mastered the role of a spoiler, if not in all, then in very many undertakings of civil society.