Perestroika begins on Saturday

The Seventh All -Russian Civil Forum was dedicated to the reinforcement of Russian society

Under the motto “Real Future” on November 30, the seventh All-Russian Civil Forum was held in Moscow (OGF-2019). This year, the organizers wanted to find an understanding of national goals in terms of various communities. The forum program was divided into ten thematic directions - from local self -government to inclusion. The goal was to unite people who defend rights in different fields and thereby form civil society.

The forum was opened by the introductory speech of one of the founders of the OGF, the head of the Accounts Chamber Alexei Kudrin. The politician said that in recent years a protest agenda has been put in Russia. The trigger for shares can be completely different reasons - from landfills to the construction of temples and unfair elections. Moreover, such a reaction, according to Kudrin, is completely normal. However, according to him, a dialogue should be configured between society and the authorities and create institutions. After all, “filling someone's face” cannot be the goal of social development.

For this, 28 thematic events were held at the forum, in which more than a thousand people took part. Among them were both public performances of TED-TALKS format and discussions.

In the discussion “the state is watching us”, dedicated to the problem of introducing a person recognition system, the lawyer of Roskomsvoboda, Sarkis Darbinyan, founder of Tazeros Global (EXal Data Hub), Arthur Khachuyan, Internet Ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev, and the head of the standard regulation of the digital economy tried to find a common language. National Center for the Digital Economy of Moscow State University named after Lomonosov Nikolay Dmitrik.

According to Sarkis Darbinyan, the current state of the identification system is jealous of individual freedom. In the near future, the system will be able to accurately determine any person and “get a huge number of relevant and sometimes significant information for him,” the expert says. In addition, according to Darbinyan,

The identification system is capable of "not only to control the behavior of a person, but also to change it."

“Knowing that this technology can identify you, you can refuse to go to a civil protest, a mosque or to some socio-political events,” says Darbinian.

Together with other participants in Roskomvoboda, a lawyer proposes to introduce a moratorium on the use of the system. “Now they are trying to tie banks to digital biometrics, and there are talk about the digitalization of human DNA. In conditions of practically uncontrolled surveillance and without guarantees of the lack of leaks, we say that for recognition of persons a little “early,” concludes the expert.

Arthur Khachuyan argues with him. In his opinion, the state will not abandon the technology of recognition of persons, no matter what documents are accepted. At the moment, the recognition system does not pose a great threat, because of the “170,000 cameras [in Moscow], which all the media write about, four thousand are really able to recognize faces,” Khachuyan is sure.

However, according to Darbinyan, the effect of the identification system is already tangible and you can even feel it at the “Moscow business”. Now, even the weak development of the system cannot guarantee that new defendants will not include.

The results of the protest summer were discussed during the discussion about the state of the electoral system. She was, in particular, devoted to the consolidation of society before elections to the State Duma in 2021. Representatives of completely different communities participated in the discussion: students, teachers, police and public observers. Among them are the editor of DOXA magazine Armen Araman, Associate Professor of the Higher School in St. Petersburg Alexei Kupriyanov and the owner of the Telegram channel Ombudsman of the Police Vladimir Vorontsov. They discussed the pressure that their communities experienced during the summer elections in Moscow.

Vladimir Vorontsov talked about how the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the election campaign in the Moscow City Duma had to reject the signatures of candidates, as well as their work at polling stations and rallies. At the same time, police officers act not of their own free will, but carry out the order of the authorities, says Vorontsov. Their apolitics, the desire to stay in their place, as well as the negative attitude of society prevents them from resisting this pressure.

- It is necessary to most enhance the role of trade unions and protect the labor rights of police officers. It will be much easier for them to refuse to fulfill the illegal orders of the authorities, if they understand the limits of their rights and duties, to know that they will be protected, ”he explains.

According to the editor of the DOXA student magazine Armen Araman, universities often ask their students to participate in pro -government rallies or in agitation for United Russia. Moreover, when they try to hold events with the participation of opposition politicians at universities, they are canceled. One of the solutions to these problems may be the creation of student trade unions.

Alexei Kupriyanov argues with Araman, who states that, unlike relations between an employee and employer, universities have no pressure tools for students. For example, it is possible to deduct from the educational institution only in connection with poor performance. Also, according to the expert, teachers who can speak freely in the walls of educational institutions about falsifications in elections and other political topics do not experience pressure on themselves.

As the results of the discussion on the forum, the program “Freedom. Elections. General business ”, which contains recommendations that will help hold fair elections to the State Duma in 2021. Its authors give advice to different groups of citizens. For example, IT specialists should participate in the analysis of new electoral technologies, the same electronic voting, and priests publicly discuss the persecution of ideological and political motives.

Political scientists Alexander Kynev and Gleb Pavlovsky argued with this program. According to Kynev, the problem is not that someone does not understand what honest elections are (“this is repeated many times from year to year”), but that there is no political will to conduct them.

According to him,

The only thing that can lead to changes is a wide civilian pressure campaign for power, which includes both the education of different groups of the population and the consolidation of local communities.

Kynev’s position is partially shared by the political scientist Gleb Pavlovsky. He adds that “mass civil campaigns” should be applied not only to specific cases, but to set wider strategic tasks. In addition, the State Duma elections in 2021 can be the last elections in Russia, and now the society should decide not to get rid of falsifications, but how to preserve their “current level”. According to the political scientist, it is too late to engage in the creation of new institutions, their work should have been established much earlier. Now civil society should try to reduce the voltage of the Cold Civil War, in which the position of power is expressed.

"Freedom. Elections. The common cause "is not the only document that was prepared for the OGF-2019. The forum also presented the program “Justice and Equality before the Law” to reform the judicial system and law enforcement agencies. In it, the authors proposed to expand the role of the competencies of the jury, for example, including in them the consideration of cases against participants in the riots. Another significant proposal is the creation of the municipal police. Its leader will be elected by the population. In addition, OGF experts proposed creating a separate agency to consider cases against employees of law enforcement agencies. The authors of the media protection program proposed to introduce a three -year moratorium on new prohibitions for media, as well as liberalize laws in the field of investment in the media, introduce marking for messages that are published on state departments, and work in the development of media graphics.

In the block “Russia is a federation. Strong regions and local self -government ”Experts focused on the decentralization of the country and the distribution of resources and responsibility between the levels of power in Russia. It was proposed to achieve this by increasing the financial independence of the constituent entities of Russia and municipalities. Direct elections of mayors should also be returned, and the participation of citizens in local self -government has been increased.

Forum participants could support the provisions of these programs during the day in the Mobile Appendix of the OGF. Work on their practical implementation will begin on Monday.