Moscow’s Moves Against Immigrants Violate Russian Constitution and Open the War to Apartheid, El Murid Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 2 – The Russian government’s latest moves against immigrants violate the 1993 Constitution, destroy a common legal space in the country, and thus open the way to apartheid in which citizens will be divided into different groups that will be treated differently as a result, according to Anatoly Nesmiyan who blogs under the screen name El Murid.
    “When the constitution was adopted,” he writes, “it was assumed that it would apply throughout the entire territory of Russia down to its last square centimeter and not applied only to some list of approved groups located there” (t.me/anatoly_nesmiyan/22692 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=6777BE2888BE2).
    According to El Murid, it was never intended that such norms “would work for some but not at all for others. But in fact, today, there is no longer any legal space in Russia; there are simply certain norms designed to legitimize violence and the rejection of basic legal principles,” which increasingly lead to the violation of the constitution.
    Many may not be alarmed by this apartheid system because it doesn’t appear to apply to them, the commentator continues. But with the adoption of this new principle, it soon may be and thus they will find themselves in as Pastor Niemoeller moment in which there will be no one left to defend them.