ABSTRACT
This book section examines legislative amendments that have tightened the freedom of assembly (i.e. the right to hold protest meetings) and have steadily been implemented in Russia since 2012. It is evident from the contents that this area has been modified most often and most frequently. The new authoritarian period, which started in 2012, coincides with intense protest activities in the famous Bolotnoe Affair. Following the overwhelming victory of the Edinaya Rossiya party in the parliamentary elections and Putin’s announcement to run for a third term as president, people poured out into the streets to protest. It was already evident that the power structures would utilise their resources to suppress protests on the spot, and the courts would apply the existing law in the most inventive way to punish protesters, including through imprisonment. It was already apparent that Aleksei Navalny’s ability to inspire and gather people for protests was problematic for a system based on asymmetrical information. This system is uncomfortable with spontaneous efforts to change its rigid and definitive boundaries. But the inventiveness of the system just accelerated, moving from impressing narration about saving society from the threat of protesting masses to individual prosecutions and eventually arriving at cumulative criminal liability for several minor protests: that is, people who protest can be punished criminally even if they have not committed a crime.
