Translated material
Go to the garden!
Rallies near government bodies will be banned in the Kaliningrad region
The government of the westernmost Russian region has developed a law that will soon be submitted to the regional Duma. According to this document, it is prohibited to hold meetings, rallies, demonstrations, processions, pickets and gatherings of citizens near buildings in which government bodies are located. For the governor of the Kaliningrad region, Georgy Boos, who came from the team of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, such a law is quite logical. A similar one operates in the Russian capital .The ban on rallies and processions will also affect historical and cultural monuments, of which there are many in the region due to the German heritage. The law establishing such restrictions is called “On the procedure for filing a notification about holding a public event on the territory of the Kaliningrad region.” The document formalizes the relationship of those who wish to hold a rally with the authorities (the draft specifies to whom and for how long it is necessary to submit notification of a public event). From now on, not only the local administration, but also the regional anti-terrorist commission, which is headed by the governor himself, should be informed about the impending action.
The most interesting provision is contained at the end of the law. “Holding a public event on the territory directly adjacent to the buildings in which government bodies of the Kaliningrad region are located, and on the territory of an object that is a monument of history and culture, and in its security zone,” the document states. If a security zone is not established, then it is automatically considered to be 100 m from the monument - no actions can be organized closer than this distance.
Instead, it was proposed to literally send the protesters to the garden. Governor Georgy Boos cited London's Hyde Park as an example to follow. “There, anyone can climb onto a bench and, posing as a great orator, broadcast to two or three people gathered about the revelations revealed to him at night. Imagine, about five of us decide to hold a rally on Moskovsky Prospekt (one of the largest highways in Kaliningrad - Ed. ), and then at rush hour they will block traffic. So what, everyone will have to wait? said Mr. Boos.
In his opinion, in each municipality of the region, up to ten places should be found that would be suitable for rallies and other street actions. The governor suggested that these could be parks, squares, squares where there is no roadway. “If there is such a possibility, then it should be provided for in the law. And if not, we will be guided by the existing mechanism,” he added.
The idea, on the one hand, is, of course, sound - no one likes to sit in traffic jams, waiting for several overly politically active fellow citizens to complete their public event. However, there is another side to the coin. In the Kaliningrad region, it was thanks to the possibility of holding public events in close proximity to government buildings that many hundreds of defrauded shareholders were able to solve their problems. By holding pickets and rallies near the city hall and the regional government, they ensured that they were heard and helped. What if people were sent to hold a rally in some deserted park? Officials, of course, would be quiet and calm, but people would still be left with their problems.
And if someone suddenly takes a risk and, having broken the law, nevertheless comes to rally under the windows of the mayor’s office, the regional government or the Duma, then they will have to answer for this - sanctions are planned to be provided for in the local code of administrative offenses.