Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 24 – A group of 20 KPRF deputies has introduced a draft law that would ban the wearing of wearing niqabs, balaclavas, and any other head coverings that prevent facial recognition but exempts from that restriction siloviki and members of the Russian Community organization that often works with the police.
The proposal (rtvi.com/news/protiv-nikabonosczev-v-gosdumu-vnesli-zakonoproekt-o-zaprete-nosheniya-masok-na-ulicze/) is the latest Moscow effort to ban niqabs worn by many of Russia’s Muslim women, but its ban on all other head coverings by others while exempting the police and the Russian Community is certainly the more important.
On the one hand, many Russians given the cold climate in which they live regularly wear balaclavas and won’t be happy about the adoption of such a ban; but on the other, those concerned about human rights and especially those of dissenters and minority groups will be alarmed, especially by the exemption for the Russian Community.
That is because the Russian Community, which poses as a defender of the Russian legal system, often violates the law in doing so; and this new proposal even if it is not adopted – and the absence of United Russia backing makes that outcome likely – is a signal that the powers that be are quite interested in using masked men without official IDs to intimidate Russians.
As such, what the KPRF deputies are proposing represents yet another step down in the direction of bully boy tactics against the opponents of the Kremlin and the further degradation of any pretense that the Russian Federation under Putin is a law-based state – even if the powers are using “laws” to achieve that end.
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