Russia's 'Foreign Agent Classification' Reminds Me of Nazi German's 'Enabling Act'
Thousands of Russian citizens are being deprived of their fundamental rights simply because they think differently.
In 2012, right about the time that middle-class and “modern” Russians were declaring that they had had enough of Vladimir Putin’s growing repression, the rubber-stamping Russian Duma passed a law called “the foreign agent law.” The law then mostly applied to non-profits and non-governmental organizations.
Today, thousands of Russians have been labeled “foreign agents,” and they are being legally ostracized to the point where living inside Russia becomes impossible. An example of how this law affects Russians can be understood in the words of a young journalist from Russia, Natalya Baranova.
In May 2022, Russian authorities labeled me as a ‘foreign agent’ (“spy” or “traitor”). I was forced to use a disclaimer in every message I posted (THIS MATERIAL — INFORMATION — WAS PRODUCED AND DISTRIBUTED BY FOREIGN AGENT BARANOVA N.V., OR CONCERNES THE ACTIVITIES OF BARANOVA N.V. 18+) send a report about my life (including my salary, expenditure, etc.) to the Minister of Justice. It is discrimination and humiliation. It is imperative that this kind of legislation be canceled, as well as many other repressive laws.
I have already had 3 fines, and I did not pay them. These fines would have helped fund the war effort. I haven’t lived in Russia since March 2022. However, this is a huge risk for many colleagues who continue their human defense work in Russia. More information about this law can be found at https://lnkd.in/gidKjxs4.
To give a short overview, with this status, I cannot teach at schools or universities, organize public assemblies or support them through donations, or participate in elections (they added the bill), and I am barred from many other activities.Hundreds of fantastic, brave people, non-government projects, and activist communities are labeled as ‘foreign agents’ or ‘undesirable organizations’ or ‘extremists’ or ‘terrorists’ in Russia. Some organizations were forced to close, and independent journalists, activists, and politicians are under criminal cases and put on Russia’s federal wanted list. Foreign agent law is only one war censorship law; you may also be persecuted because you speak against the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Ms. Baranova continues to do meaningful and necessary work advancing the rights of women and fighting against Putin’s war of genocide being wrought on both Ukraine and Russia. Like thousands of other Russians, though, she is exiled from her home because of the fascist revolution underway in Russia.
In the way that Hitler used the powers granted to him in the Enabling Act of 1933, so too did Putin and the Russian authorities declare anyone who “looks different” enemies of the Russian nation. This is a lie, however, most simply because Ms. Baranova and many other others love the Russian nation. They are against the insanity of the dictator, however, who has taken over the country. Putin’s grand mistake is that he is not the Russian nation sadly today, though a majority of Russians have turned their backs on Russia and accepted Putin as their savior — this is blasphemy.
The “spies and agents” living inside of Russia and externally have been denied their most basic rights as citizens and humans. Regrettably, though, things have gone so far so fast that if any Russian today marches out onto St. Peterburg’s Palace Square and expresses that they are against Russia’s law on foreign agents, that person too will be labeled as such, that person too will become a hobbled citizen, a marked target for additional abuse and most likely future imprisonment.
The world did very little as Hitler’s bureaucracy rather efficiently implemented the powers granted in the Enabling Act. With each new law, Jewish German citizens, people who had been living in Germany for centuries, were declared “aliens.” Their most basic rights were stripped to the point where they could not even sit on park benches, let alone go to schools. We can pretend this won’t happen in Russia, but it is already happening.
And most horrifically, the vast majority of Russians are sitting silently watching. Their silence is agreement — until it happens to them, and then they will ask: “How did this happen?”
Then, there is the U.S. Congress, half of which is controlled by Donald Trump, and we even see Putin’s power being exercised there as the Republicans refuse to give support to Ukraine.
Now it’s my turn: “How did this happen?”