“New people” want to go to the street

State Duma Vice Speaker Vladislav Davankov (New People) asked Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova to recommend that regions lift coronavirus restrictions on rallies, pickets and marches. The World Health Organization (WHO) canceled the status of the COVID-19 pandemic back in May 2023, the deputy recalled, and the remaining bans hinder, among other things, the conduct of election campaigning during the current election campaign. As Kommersant found out, the “covid” regime continues to operate in more than a third of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, but in some of them restrictions on mass events have already been lifted. The expert believes that for the opposition the ban on public actions is not the most pressing topic, and Mr. Davankov is more likely to focus on the “liberal Moscow electorate.”

In his address to Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, who also oversees health issues (Kommersant has a copy of the letter), Vladislav Davankov noted that covid “high alert regimes” are still in effect in some regions of the Russian Federation, although WHO has removed pandemic status for COVID-19 as early as May 5, 2023. The measures introduced under these regimes restrict the holding of public actions (rallies, processions and pickets), while holidays, concerts and other mass events are not banned, the deputy recalled.

The current situation, in his opinion, can violate not only the constitutional rights of citizens, but also the right of candidates participating in elections at different levels to conduct election campaigning. “Under the pretext of ‘sustaining significant risks of the mass spread of a new coronavirus infection’, regional authorities are denying campaigners the right to hold one-man pickets to support registered candidates in the elections,” wrote Mr. Davankov, who himself is a candidate for mayor of Moscow in the upcoming elections in September. The listed conflicts, coupled with the generally recognized end of the pandemic, give rise to finally lift regional restrictions on public events, the Vice Speaker of the State Duma believes. In this regard, he asks Ms. Golikova to recommend to the heads of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation to lift such prohibitions contained in the decrees on the introduction of high alert regimes.

Recall that, according to the current legislation, the high alert regime due to the difficult epidemiological situation is introduced by the governors on the recommendation of the chief sanitary doctors of the regions. Kommersant sent a request to Rospotrebnadzor with a request to clarify its position on the preservation of anti-covid restrictions in the field.

According to the “reference information” posted on the Consultant Plus portal, as of August 1, the high alert regime due to the threat of the spread of COVID-19 continued to operate in 32 out of 85 Russian regions (excluding new territories). True, the preservation of this regime did not prevent, in a number of cases, the targeted lifting of restrictions on holding public events. For example, in the Chelyabinsk region, where the order of the regional government on the introduction of a high alert regime of March 18, 2020 is still in force (at the end of June 2023, the words about the threat of coronavirus were excluded from the document and only references to the “threat of emergencies” remained), mass actions are allowed, and refusals to hold them are justified not by covid bans, but by the presence of other applications for the same places or repair work. A similar situation has developed in the Sverdlovsk and Omsk regions, where there are no restrictions on holding mass events, despite the ongoing high alert regime.

At the same time, the high alert regime and the associated ban on holding public rallies continue to operate in both capitals. On May 25, the St. Petersburg authorities announced the extension of “all previously not lifted restrictions” until the end of the summer. And the Moscow mayor’s office recalled the ongoing restrictions on rallies in June in response to the appeal of the head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma, Maxim Kruglov. “The risk of complicating the situation regarding the incidence of COVID-19 remains, and therefore, at present, a high alert regime continues to operate in the city of Moscow,” Vasily Oleinik, First Deputy Head of the Regional Security Department, said in response to a deputy’s request.

53 regions have already finally lifted all coronavirus restrictions along with the high alert regime. Moreover, 19 constituent entities of the Russian Federation did this even before the official end of the pandemic, for example, anti-COVID bans were lifted in Chechnya in March 2022, and in the Krasnodar Territory in April 2022. Another 34 governors lifted restrictions shortly after the WHO announcement: 16 in May, 18 in June and July.

For example, in Tatarstan, the high alert regime was lifted in June, and all restrictions were finally lifted in July. Prior to this, due to the coronavirus, any mass actions were briefly banned in the region, and recently only events with more than 200 people were banned. In Mari El, all previously imposed restrictions on coronavirus have been canceled since June 13, and in Crimea since the end of May, on the eve of the holiday season. Although, as Ilya Donchenko, a member of the Crimean parliament of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, assured Kommersant, mass events were not prohibited by local authorities before. Now, as Kommersant was told in the Republican Council of Ministers, only an incorrectly submitted application can serve as an official reason for refusing to hold such actions.

On the other hand, in some regions, “rally” bans persisted even after the lifting of covid restrictions. For example, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, as Kommersant previously reported, after the high-alert regime was lifted in July 2023, restrictions on holding public events were transferred to a 2022 decree on measures to ensure a basic security regime in connection with the holding of a military defense. Exceptions may be made, in particular, for actions organized with the support of state authorities, cultural and sports events with up to 300 participants, and religious gatherings. The authorities of the Samara region followed the same path, which canceled the high alert regime, but retained the ban on holding mass events “to ensure public safety.”

Finally, in some regions, the existing “rally” restrictions are no longer related to COVID-19, for example, in the Kursk region, mass events have been canceled due to the average level of response and attacks from Ukraine.

The ban on public rallies is not a very urgent problem for the current opposition, political scientist Pyotr Miloserdov believes. “A patriotic consensus has developed in the parliamentary opposition around a special military operation, and the topic of protests has itself faded into the background through the efforts of parliamentary parties,” he said. Therefore, only non-systemic forces keep the request for public actions, the expert notes, “but the question arises: how many of these people are ready to take to the streets today?” The initiative of Vladislav Davankov, according to Mr. Miloserdov, is aimed at the “liberal Moscow electorate”, which considers it important to retain the right to hold a public protest. “Yes, he (Vladislav Davankov.— “b”) encroaches on the “apple” electorate and, I think, will somehow take away a piece from it,” the political scientist argues. “He wants Muscovites to see him as a liberal. Well, maybe someone else will.”

Grigory Leiba, Andrei Ash; corset “b”