{"id":21436,"date":"2020-12-03T17:02:49","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T14:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/?p=21436"},"modified":"2021-12-15T13:34:55","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T10:34:55","slug":"so-that-foreigners-are-feared-and-blamed-for-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/articles\/columns\/so-that-foreigners-are-feared-and-blamed-for-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"So that Foreigners are Feared and Blamed for Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s happened many times before: As soon as someone is rubbed the wrong way by something, they start screaming \u201cDiscrimination!\u201d For many people, the word \u201cdiscrimination\u201d signifies everything they don\u2019t like, everything that bothers them personally. You failed a test? Discrimination! You lost your attendance bonus? Even more so! Everything that\u2019s offensive and humiliating is \u201cunjust,\u201d and injustice is seen as discrimination. Even though the injustice of an evaluation or punishment must be proven, it is even harder to prove discriminatory grounds (on the basis of race, gender, religion, health, sexual orientation and gender identity, and so forth) for this injustice. But people regularly forget this and view discrimination as \u201cI\u2019m under attack!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Allegations of discrimination against Russian media outlets by \u201cforeign internet platforms\u201d are a glaring example of this. The journal \u201cInternational Affairs\u201d (whose board is chaired by Russia\u2019s Minister of Foreign Affairs) published a pretty infographic<\/a> on its website underlining that discrimination \u201chas become systemic in nature.\u201d But do these international jurists even know what systemic discrimination is? What UN and Council of Europe experts mean by this term is the exclusion of minorities due to widespread but often unconscious discrimination based on a fundamental characteristic (ethnic and religious groups, women, persons with disabilities, LGBTI+ people). This type of discrimination is pervasive<\/a> for the Roma population, for example. Clearly, the dramatic story of how <\/span>YouTube<\/span><\/em> \u201cplaced restrictions on five accounts\u201d does not in any way fall under this definition. But something else does\u2014the persecution of everything \u201cforeign\u201d and the disenfranchisement of the rights of dual citizens, foreign media outlets and internet platforms, and NGOs and natural persons who have been declared \u201cforeign agents.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Constitutional Court judge Konstantin Aranovsky expressed this idea perfectly in a dissenting opinion to a decision<\/a> on an appeal to the law on the media, which restricts the rights of foreign owners. There\u2019s a good reason why the government had the foresight to ban Constitutional Court judges from having a \u201cdissenting opinion\u201d before a slew of new laws against the media were adopted! Here I will quote large excerpts of Aranovsky\u2019s opinion: \u201cThe foreign origin of persons, capital, ideas, and so forth cannot in and of itself pose a threat to constitutionally important values. The multinational people of the Russian Federation adopted their Constitution and recognized themselves as a part of the world community, as explicitly set forth in the Preamble.\u201d And then: \u201cLawful restrictions on rights and freedoms are protective in nature and are specifically intended to safeguard constitutional values (objectives)…nothing can be \u2018more useful\u2019 in the Russian constitutional order than human rights, which are given the highest value in this system. No other benefit or public interest can be favored over them in the influential attitudes and intentions of the government.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Judge Aranovksy warned that if the authorities are allowed to control the distribution of information \u201cwith the right to ban \u2018suspicious people\u2019 (foreigners and dual citizens, for example) from distributing this information, then what arises is censorship and control over minds and opinions, which contravenes the provisions of Article 29 of the Constitution.\u201d Aranovsky demanded that the idea of a \u201cthreat\u201d lurking in foreigners be \u201cestablish[ed] and prove[n] in constitutional proceedings in terms of actual existing dangers and sources of risk,\u201d otherwise, \u201crestrictions on rights and freedoms will go beyond the constitutional framework.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Aranovsky also mentioned a different Constitutional Court decision regarding the law on NGOs. This decision stated that: \u201cRussia \u2018does not imagine itself\u2019 outside of the world community\u201d and that foreign financing of non-governmental organizations \u201cdoes not put their loyalty to the government in doubt.\u201d Anything else would contradict the Constitution, which obligates the state to safeguard, and not diminish, human dignity. Under the Constitution, even the status of \u201corganization performing the functions of a foreign agent does not presuppose a negative appraisal of\u201d or \u201ca negative attitude towards the organization\u2019s political activities\u201d and \u201ccannot be taken as a manifestation of distrust or a desire to discredit,\u201d while a foreign residence permit does not diminish a citizen\u2019s rights or serve as a ground for denying the citizen the right to be a member of an election (territorial) committee.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Alas, there is no memory of last year\u2019s dissenting opinion, which directly stated that \u201cxenophobia is an old and persistent reflex that is more likely to confuse than to point to actual risks… so that foreigners are feared and blamed for everything\u201d (thus recognizing the disenfranchisement of the rights of foreign media outlets and other organizations connected with the \u201cworld community\u201d as xenophobic and, consequently, discriminatory). The latest bills also void the Constitutional Court\u2019s cautiously-worded decisions, which, even though they did not find the stamp of \u201cforeign agent\u201d unconstitutional, did extensively explain that in and of itself this stamp \u201ccannot be taken as a manifestation of distrust or a desire to discredit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, when every person who ends up in the register has to demonstrate of themselves or another person that they are an agent or \u201caffiliated with a person performing the functions of an agent,\u201d when this stamp does not allow people to run for election or hold municipal positions, when foreign media outlets and platforms can be blocked or \u201cslowed,\u201d and when an NGO can simply be shut down (specifically because of distrust and a desire to discredit), all of the Constitutional Court\u2019s previous rhetoric seems like \u201ca faculty of useless knowledge,\u201d just like the desecrated Constitution itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stefania Kulaeva<\/strong>
\nFirst published on the blog of Radio Svoboda<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s happened many times before: As soon as someone is rubbed the wrong way by something, they start screaming \u201cDiscrimination!\u201d For many people, the word \u201cdiscrimination\u201d signifies everything they don\u2019t like, everything that bothers them personally. You failed a test?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[565,362],"tags":[409,213],"strategy_cases":[],"campaign":[],"archive":[],"filter-content":[],"regions":[],"class_list":["post-21436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-columns","tag-civic-activists-en","tag-discrimination-en"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_.jpg",1200,799,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-125x125.jpg",125,125,true],"medium":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-768x511.jpg",640,426,true],"large":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-650x433.jpg",640,426,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_.jpg",1200,799,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_.jpg",1200,799,false],"pub-thumb":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-220x146.jpg",220,146,true],"post-thumb":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-170x170.jpg",170,170,true],"wcicon":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-48x48.jpg",48,48,true],"wcsquare":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"wcsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-250x166.jpg",250,166,true],"wcstandard":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-550x366.jpg",550,366,true],"wcbig":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-800x533.jpg",800,533,true],"wcfixedheightsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-270x180.jpg",270,180,true],"wcfixedheightmedium":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-451x300.jpg",451,300,true],"wcfixedheight":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-751x500.jpg",751,500,true],"wccarouselsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-210x150.jpg",210,150,true],"wccarousel":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-400x285.jpg",400,285,true],"wcslider":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/one_against_all_all_against_one_discussion_symbolic_game_characters_wood_dispute_outsider-418328.jpgd_-1100x500.jpg",1100,500,true]},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"

It\u2019s happened many times before: As soon as someone is rubbed the wrong way by something, they start screaming \u201cDiscrimination!\u201d For many people, the word \u201cdiscrimination\u201d signifies everything they don\u2019t like, everything that bothers them personally. You failed a test? Discrimination! You lost your attendance bonus? Even more so! Everything that\u2019s offensive and humiliating is \u201cunjust,\u201d and injustice is seen as discrimination. Even though the injustice of an evaluation or punishment must be proven, it is even harder to prove discriminatory grounds (on the basis of race, gender, religion, health, sexual orientation and gender identity, and so forth) for this…<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"Articles<\/a>, Columns<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"admin3","url":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/author\/admin3\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21436"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24441,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21436\/revisions\/24441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21436"},{"taxonomy":"strategy_cases","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/strategy_cases?post=21436"},{"taxonomy":"campaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campaign?post=21436"},{"taxonomy":"archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive?post=21436"},{"taxonomy":"filter-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/filter-content?post=21436"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=21436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}