Translated material
Memory of the 31st article of the Constitution
Revolution
The 31st articles of the Constitution is no longer. Vladimir Putin on June 8 signed a law tightening sanctions for violations at rallies. On June 5, the State Duma in the second and third readings simultaneously adopted a bill, which actually crossed out the 31st article of the Constitution. Even the “Italian strike”, which was arranged by deputies from opposition factions, could not interfere with United Russia, even “Italian strike”. The State Duma live on the historical meeting of The New Times watched with tens of thousands of protesters 
Narusova proposed to postpone the consideration of the law, but the argument was not heard. As a result, the senators supported the almost unanimously scandalous law: the exception was the same Narusova, who did not begin to vote, and the senator from Chukotka Larisa Ponomarev, the mother of the State Duma deputy from Fair Russia Ilya Ponomarev, one of the initiators of the on the eve of the "Italian strike" *** invented by Italian parliamentarians. the adoption of the law in parliament by making many amendments .. She voted against. “According to the Rules of the Chamber, the law must undergo a discussion in the committees,” Narusova later told reporters. - Under the cover of the night, two committees, on security and legal, reported that before the meeting, at 8-9 in the morning, we had to gather. The remaining committees and members of the Federation Council, of course, did not know about this ... ”However, in the Federation Council on this day, June 6, they did not know much: for example, a letter of the head of the Presidential Council of Human Rights Mikhail Fedotov did not come to Valentina Matvienko with a request to postpone the consideration of the bill. “The main defect of the law is that, in fact, it involves the criminalization of the procedure for using basic constitutional law - the right to gather peacefully.” On June 7, the Human Rights Council recognized the bill adopted by the Duma to the anti -constitutional, the conclusion was published and submitted for familiarization with Vladimir Putin, the president withdrew the theater pause, but in the evening of June, he still signed a scandalous bill.
Italian battle *
“For the first time in 12 years, the plenary meeting of the Duma caused such a resonance: even federal television channels were forced to tell about our demarche,” said Dmitry Gudkov, the author of the idea of the “Italian strike”, the author of the idea of “Italian strike”. “I think Putin will be much more difficult to sign now this bill, he is the most resonant, probably since the decision to monetize benefits.”
The fact that the second reading of the bill will not work out, it became clear from the early morning of June 5, when the police detained about 70 protesters, led by the leader of Yabloko, Sergei Mitrokhin in front of the State Duma building. Initially, the deputies should have considered the bill after a lunch break, but, apparently, frightened by the impending strike, began in the morning. Each of the 19 amendments proposed by the Committee on Constitutional Legislation, headed by Vladimir Pligin, the deputies from Fair Russia subjected obstruction, but in order to reject them, the Communists and Socialist Revolutionaries did not have enough votes. On the discussion and the adoption of United Russia's amendments, in the end, a little more than an hour took. But this was enough that deputy Alexei Mitrofanov, expelled from the Fair Russia faction, began to be indignant: “I would like to address Gennady Vladimirovich personally: do not torment us with amendments. It’s all the same how to do what the military personnel do after the end, when they did not see women for a long time. The Duma is tired! " "If one of the deputies is tired, maybe make a special break for them?" - retorted Eser Valery Gartung. There was a turn of consideration of the amendments proposed by the opposition fractions: they prepared 411 pieces. In order not to delay the process, the United Russia proposed to reduce the time of discussion of amendments and the time allotted to the vote. “It is necessary to increase the voting time. Well, what are we, people arrest there, and we forbid the rallies and we want everything quickly and quickly so that no one has heard anything and no one did anything. Well, maybe even though Mitrofanov will have time for something, which he did not have time to do in the army, ”the deputy communitor Nikolai Kolomeytsev was indignant. "
Oleg Morozov and Ekaterina Semenov, however, “voted” for the adoption of the law, were “voted” with the ruling party, however, a few hours before the vote, their powers were terminated by the Duma
”The introduction of many amendments to the bill, which canceled the right of citizens to freedom of assembly, was the essence of the strike proposed by Gudkov-Jr.. As a result, he, his father, Colonel of the FSB of the FSB, deputy Gennady Gudkov, as well as deputies Valery Zubov, Ilya Ponomarev, communist Vadim Solovyov by clocks They settled them with amendments, delaying the moment of voting as much as possible. The deposits were supposed to prepare about 1 thousand amendments to stretch the law for a week, still threatened the law of the law in one day. 
Night vigils
“Dear deputies, dear Sergey Evgenievich,”-Gudkov, Jr., monotonously addressed the deputies and speaker, counting the next amendment. To disrupt the strike, the United Russia, by the beginning of his speeches, went to change the regulations and reduced the voting time on the amendment from 15 to 5 seconds, and left one minute to the deputy instead of three. “We want citizens to know who is the author of the bill. Therefore, we want to supplement that he was introduced by deputies Sidyakin, Vyatkin, Kurbanov, Ponezhezhsky, ”Gudkov dictated, but not one of his amendments passed. The Socialist -Revolutionaries Valery Zubov, who replaced him, proposed the amount of fines to calculate in police batons and even tied a dispute with Vladimir Pligin on their value. 
By six o’clock in the evening, when the plenary meeting was supposed to be completed, it became completely clear that the deputies at the workplace would have to stay. “Why are you tormenting us? We have to call the Nizhny Tagil workers, or what? " - MP Mitrofanov again cast a voice, but no one heard him. The head of the Committee Pligin, who spent the whole day standing behind the stands, reacted semi -automatically reacted to each opposition: “reject”. Speaker Naryshkin, who was gloomy more and more every hour, said: "Turn on the voting mode." And then simply: "Turn on the mode." Still, the School of the KGB of the USSR was not in vain. 
Only shortly before midnight, the Duma first in 239 voices, and then 241 in the voice with the necessary 226 adopted the law in the second and third readings. In addition to the United Russia, Alexei Mitrofanov and two former members of the faction who went to the Duma were voted for him on the lists of “Fair Russia” - Igor Zotov and Nikolai Lakutin *** All three were excluded from the faction after supporting Dmitry Medvedev’s candidacy for the post of chairman of the government ..
What next *
Deputies from the opposition factions intend to challenge the adoption of the law as a non -relevant constitution. “We have already created a working group to prepare a lawsuit in the Constitutional Court, we are carefully studying the text of the law and we are more and more convinced that it is a direct contradiction with the 31st article of the Constitution,” said Vadim Soloviev, deputy from the Communist Party of the Communist Party of the Communist Party. - The right to freedom of assembly is universal and its restriction is possible only with the aim of protecting the constitutional system. Our colleagues from United Russia did not provide a single evidence of the need to adopt this law to strengthen the constitutional system. The only link is to the events of May 6. But our party holds up to 10 thousand protests per year, and on May 6 - a drop in the sea. 99.9% of the shares are carried out in strict accordance with the law without any fights and ignition. So adopting the law on the basis of one incident is simply incorrect, especially since those clashes were largely provoked by the authorities itself. ” According to the deputy, there is an attempt to destroy the institution of citizens' rights to hold rallies and demonstrations. Also, according to Solovyov, the State Duma regulations were rudely violated: “Firstly, we went to reduce the time to justify the amendments: first from three minutes to one, and then up to 30 and 15 seconds. In addition, more than 80 deputies from the EP were absent in the hall without good reason: in the morning they were, after lunch, too, and in the evening they disappeared, leaving no power of attorney, nothing. ” Finally, Soloviev claims that the post -fact of the fact turned out: the deputies from the ruling party Oleg Morozov and Ekaterina Semenova “voted” for the adoption of the law. However, a few hours before the vote, their powers were terminated by the Duma in connection with the transfer of Morozov to the post of head of the domestic policy department of the presidential administration, and Semenova to the post of Minister of the Consumer Market and the services of the Moscow Region. So they had no right to vote. Soloviev notes that the preparation of the claim can take 1.5–2 months: firstly, the Communists want to enlist the support of other factions, and secondly, so that the lawsuit is more significant, they intend to wait until the law comes into force and the first cases of its application appear. 
According to the author of the idea of the strike of Dmitry Gudkov, at least the opposition could not stop the law, the party in power received a good preventive lesson from arrogance. “Our goal was to attract the maximum attention of people, to show how much the Party of power is afraid of its people,” the deputy says. -We forced them to discuss our amendments for 11 hours, we nevertheless returned the discussion to the Duma and gave some kind of battle to Era. They showed that the reluctance of the authorities to go to the dialogue will generate new forms of protest even where they are not waiting for this at all. So the action is 100% successful, we ourselves did not expect what resonance would be. ” According to him, it is impossible to regularly arrange such strikes - it will not be interested in anyone, on the other hand: “We have many creative, creative people - this is the opposition to qualitatively ahead of power, so we need to come up with new protest formats.”
Old new methods. 46 years ago, the Central Committee of the CPSU already adopted a similar law, solving the same problems as the current government
From a note of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU dated September 3, 1966 under the heading "Secret"
“In recent years, antisocial elements have repeatedly made attempts to organize the so -called rallies, demonstrations and other mass speeches directed against the authorities of Soviet power. At the same time, the organizers and their active participants refused to obey the legal requirements of representatives of the authorities. Such gatherings took place in Moscow about “freedom of art”, “the oppression of the Baptists-Initiatives”, “Memory of the Victims of Stalinism”, “Crimean Tatar Problem”. Such gatherings, fraught with serious consequences, were in other cities of the country. The absence of a norm in the law providing for the liability of organizers, instigators and active participants in these gatherings creates an opinion on impunity for such actions. Preventive measures are not always effective. ”