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Russia looking to strip ‘foreign agents’ of income from selling or renting property

The Russian State Duma building. Photo: EPA-EFE/YURI KOCHETKOV

The Russian State Duma building. Photo: EPA-EFE/YURI KOCHETKOV

The speaker of Russia’s State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, has announced plans to expand legislation banning those deemed “foreign agents” by the government from receiving royalty payments to include profits from property rental and sales.

Volodin said lawmakers had amended a bill that forces royalty payments due to “foreign agents” to be made to special ruble accounts to apply to all income from the sale and rent of property, as well as interest on deposits and dividends. “Foreign agents” are not entitled to make withdrawals from such accounts, meaning they would be unable to access their money until their “foreign agent” status is revoked.

“Those who betrayed our country should not enrich themselves at the expense of its citizens,” Volodin wrote, adding that the second reading of the bill would take place on 17 December.

Under Russian law, any person or organisation deemed to have received funding from a foreign state or to be under “foreign influence” must register as a “foreign agent”, however, the legislation has been used arbitrarily against many Kremlin critics and independent journalists, including former Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, to silence dissent.

Although many of those labelled “foreign agents” have chosen to leave the country, some remain in Russia with their rights severely curtailed. In March, Russian companies were banned from advertising with “foreign agents”, effectively cutting off another source of income for those operating in Russia, while in May, “foreign agents” were banned from taking part in elections at any level as well as from acting as election observers.

On Thursday, the Duma approved the third reading of a bill to expand the criteria for adding Russians to the “terrorist and extremist” register maintained by Russia’s financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring, which currently includes individuals investigated under terrorism- or extremism-related charges.

The bill proposes expanding the register, which already includes the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny as well as those accused of being behind the March terror attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall, to include anybody found to have committed crimes “motivated by political, religious, ideological, racial or national hatred”.

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