Read Online The New Nobility of the KGB by Andrei Soldatov - Free Book Online

crime: “There will be no new criminal revolution in Russia. . . . The number of crimes is decreasing. . . . We can state: An epoch of criminal wars is in the past.” 2
     
    On April 15, 2009, at a public meeting, Yuri Kokov, the head of the new department charged with fighting extremism, was more revealing: “The operative situation might get worse under the conditions of the global crisis, [with] deterioration of the social and economic situation.” 3 He was supported by Alexei Sedov, the FSB’s chief of the service for protection of the constitutional system and struggle against terrorism.“We need to consider the consequences of the world financial crisis as a possible catalyst for terrorist activity and increasing extremist manifestations, including violent forms of resistance carried out by all kinds of dissenters, unauthorized opposition, youth, and students.” 4
     
    Under Russian law, public utterances inciting racial, social, or other forms of hate are considered extremism—that is, words, not actions. Yet the Interior Ministry’s official records suggest that extremism is not nearly as big a problem as organized crime. Official data from the Interior Ministry’s Main Information Analysis Center for 2008 show 36,601 incidents that were investigated involving organized criminal groups, but only 460 cases of extremism were registered. 5
     
    In the campaign against extremism, the authorities placed the emphasis on prevention. Nurgaliev, the interior minister, announced that “the function of the department on countering extremism is first of all operative and recruiting work, aimed at the discovery and suppression of crimes, and also the prevention and monitoring of what is going on in the sphere of extremist activities.” 6 Thus the Interior Ministry, which had formerly investigated crime, was driven into the murky area of prevention, which was more traditional for the FSB.
     
    A list of extremist targets was promptly prepared. On December 16, 2008, the General Prosecutor’s Office, the FSB, and the Interior Ministry approved a joint decision on extremism. The document stated that “extremism has become one of the major factors posing a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation.”
     
    At the top of the list is “extremism under cover of Islam.” In most cases this appears to include associations and communities, independent of the so-called traditional Islam that is supervised officially by the Russian government. Next on the list are followers of pagan cults. The list also includes “participants in informal youth groups” and some radical opposition parties and movements. The joint decision prescribed how to work with the target groups, from surveillance methods to criminal prosecution. One of the most important areas of work is “neutralization and disbanding of associations whose members are prone to extremism.” 7
     
    By spring 2009 it was obvious that the security services intended to broaden the list of extremist groups enumerated in the December 2008 order. Now the Interior Ministry is focusing on independent trade unions (lest they launch a wave of strikes) and warning leaders of such groups that they risk being charged with extremism.
     
    In April 2009, Petr Zolotarev, the head of the independent trade union at the sprawling Avtovaz car factory, announced that he was summoned to the prosecutor’s office for the town of Togliatti for “explanations about actions aimed at overthrowing the existing order.” Earlier, Zolotarev had been questioned by officials at the local center on countering extremism.
     
    Any expressions of public protest, by anyone from deceived stock market investors to residents rallying to keep a park in their area, can fall under the umbrella definition of extremism. On June 5, 2009, in St. Petersburg, for example, police detained six protesters—real estate investors claiming they had been defrauded—and warned them that they ran the risk of