This message and punishment

Why is the status of a foreign agent not just a marking, but a three -stage ban on a profession

“The money that they receive because of the cordon should be painted because of the hillock,” President Putin said at the Valdai Forum, answering the question of our chief editing Dmitry Muratov about the revision of the legislation about “foreign agents”. The President believes that the laws are aimed at the labeling of “domestic political activity”, which is carried out with foreign money, this is the “right of Russian society”, but there is no discrimination as a result of the application of such laws - “both worked and work further”. Putin agreed that the legislation on foreign agents causes concern in society and “you need to look carefully again”.

The moderator of the discussion, the editor -in -chief of the Russian World Politics magazine Fedor Lukyanov asked the president the question of whether it is necessary to fear the “excess of the performer”, because it is known that the special services live on the principle of “better overwhelming”. "Maybe we will not have agents with carpet?" - asked Lukyanov. “We do not write in foreign agents massively,” Putin concluded a discussion of the topic.

Regarding the “overdoing” ... On the eve of the Ministry of Construction, it proposed allowing the state media not to report to Roskomnadzor about foreign money. In the event that the founder of the media is the federal authorities or the media receive subsidies from the federal budget, they must be exempted from the risk of becoming a foreign agent, officials say. The proposal of the Ministry of Council demonstrates that in the current form the laws are written in such a way that their literal reading turns into foreign agents of all - in the absence of the minimum amount of “foreign money”, a clear procedure for recognizing the chances of exit from the registry, all the media will once have to turn into foreign agents, including, relatively speaking, newspapers “Evening Moscow” and “Red Star”. Sooner or later, everything will be “painted” - this is how the law of Russian foreign entropy sounds.

Worse, instead of proposing to clarify the formulations of the law, the Minzifra proposes to protect from his actions “its own”, actually legalize the current selective application of law. If your founder is a respected state man, it means that you can sleep peacefully in the house and on Fridays: you will not find yourself among foreign agents. Such a division of media into those who have state immunity, and others, contradicts the law “On the Media”, Constitution and common sense. Dmitry Peskov, by the way, stated that “there is no position in the Kremlin on the suggestion of the Ministry of Construction” - probably we are talking about an attempt to run ahead of the rink.

The tragicomic situation with Rosbalt IA has already developed (recognized by the Ministry of Justice of Ino -Agents in the previous Friday portion), which was the first “double agent” in the world.

Twitter marks his message with the mark “State Media - Russia”, and the Russian state offers the same records to provide a notification about the status of a foreign agent.

I must say that the American corporation acts a little more humane: with its signature, it does not take away precious symbols allotted to the message from the “state foreign agent” (on Twitter, you can post up to 280 characters on Twitter). And, of course, it does not force the media to keep additional reporting.

It was not easy to figure out exactly which place and for what you were “painted”, but the Voice movement (recognized by the Ministry of Justice of the Ino-agent) found out that they got their status literally because of the transfer of 200 rubles received from a citizen of Armenia, signed as “Norayir Lvovna Manukyan”. This turned out to be a good reason so that the observation of the elections would turn into a spy campaign, carried out in the interests of foreign powers. It is almost impossible to dodge Norair Lvovna, the only way to do this is due to a complete refusal of donations. And this also proves the opacity and absurdity of laws on foreign agents.

Although the law does not formally declare discrimination against “foreign agents”, he only creates significant inconvenience to them, state bodies and even public structures themselves understand the hint and try to stay away from “marked” away. The disgusting story happened with the organization “Information Culture”, which refused the journalist Ales Marakhovskaya, recognized by the Ministry of Justice of the Inoganit, in participation in the professional Hacathon conference-despite her participation a few months before the next Friday promotion of the Ministry of Justice. The poet and journalist Tatyana Voltskaya, recognized by the Ministry of Justice of the Ino -Agent, a few days ago refused the performance of the Kemerovo Theater. In both cases, someone decided that although formally to foreign agents are not prohibited from us, it is better not to get involved in practice.

A week ago, the Russian Rain TV channel, created with Russian money by Russian founders and broadcasting to Russia, but still recognized by the Ministry of Justice of the Ino -agent, led his marathon “People's Agents”, during which many wonderful human rights activists and journalists who already got into the “lists” appeared on the air. In parallel, it became known that the first fines for “violation of the foreign reporting” were written out for the Yakut journalist Petrov, recognized by the ino -agent, and human rights activist Lev Ponomarev, recognized by the foreign agent (sometimes it seems that soon there will be nothing in the language except the “this message”). Ponomarev’s offense was the fact that

That he congratulated Dmitry Muratov on the Nobel Prize of the world, without providing this phrase by the mention of his status.

What if the laws in the current form were generally written in order to distribute “insignia” to everyone, but in order to squeeze people out of the profession in three simple moves? The register enters administrative responsibility for improper reporting, and then the threat of criminal cases. It is difficult to see another pragmatics in the laws that themselves are clearly written “inadequate”.