Russia expands money laundering statutes to enable broader political repressions against anti-Kremlin speech and fundraising

You’ve heard it before: the Russian authorities have adopted yet another repressive law. This time, State Duma deputies drafted amendments to 48 (!) separate federal laws. The gist of this legislative flurry was to equate “funding extremist activities” with “financing terrorism.” Basically, it means harsher penalties for acts of so-called “extremism.”

Arguably, the most alarming change (in terms of escalating political repressions) is the amendment to Russia’s law against laundering “criminally obtained income and financing terrorism.” By equating the punishments related to financing “terrorism” and “extremism,” the law significantly broadens the scope of Russians at risk of being added to the Federal Financial Monitoring Service’s list of “terrorists and extremists, ” which subjects designees to sanctions that legal experts have described as a form of “civil death.”

The amendments provide the following definition:

Yes, but the Prosecutor General’s Office, not the State Duma, determines the final list.

Previously, Russia’s law against money laundering mentioned a much narrower list of “extremist” crimes. Committing — or even being suspected of committing — these offenses could land a person on the Federal Financial Monitoring Service’s list.

For example, the old list didn’t include many crimes clearly considered serious from the state’s perspective, such as violating Russia’s territorial integrity and even genocide.

Now, the authorities can add people to their list of “terrorists and extremists” for any “extremist” offense. It’s worth noting that lawmakers were tricky about how they made this change.

The amendments are explicit about some “extremism-related crimes,” such as genocide and violations of Russia’s territorial integrity, as well as propagating Nazi symbols (which the law previously omitted). Lawmakers even incorporated the most recent updates to the list maintained by the Prosecutor General, which this summer started designating prominent political publications as the “extremist” dissemination of “discrediting” “fake news” about Russia’s military and state authorities.

The amendments to Russia’s money laundering laws also identify “extremist” and “terrorist” crimes related to murder, inflicting bodily harm, torture, death threats, desecrating bodies and burial places, and inciting threats to national security.

Believe it or not, yes.

You betcha.

The explicitly listed crimes aren’t the Prosecutor General’s full arsenal of “extremist” offenses. Even offenses not directly identified can become grounds for stripping suspects or convicts of their rights. The only difference is that the law’s “implicit” money laundering crimes must involve an aggravating circumstance. In other words, prosecutors must establish that the offender acted on motives of “political, ideological, racial, national, or religious hatred or enmity, or hatred or enmity toward a social group.”

These aggravating circumstances might even be absent in a specific statute’s Criminal Code articulation, but prosecutors can still classify cases as extremist at their discretion. The Prosecutor General’s Office maintains a restricted list of these statutes. The list includes offenses like assault, insulting religious sentiment, hazing in the military, and rehabilitating Nazism (a vague and repressive statute that can be used against anyone who so much as disparages celebrations of Soviet military victories).

Whenever it wants. 

For example, the agency could add an offense like insulting government officials or defamation, “committed out of political, ideological, racial, national, or religious hatred or enmity, or hatred or enmity toward any social group.”

The main restrictions are financial. Bank accounts registered to people designated as “terrorists and extremists” (and, in practice, even to their relatives) are blocked, and monthly withdrawals are strictly capped at 10,000 rubles ($95) for personal needs. This limit also applies to each dependent in the individual’s family.

The people targeted under these laws face many other obstacles, too. For example, it should come as no surprise that employers are often reluctant to hire persons the government lists as “terrorists and extremists.”