Zatulin sharply criticizes the presidential bill “On Citizenship”
The State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted today the law “On Citizenship” introduced by the president. It, in particular, provides for the possibility of depriving acquired citizenship for public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces and volunteer formations to protect the interests of Russia and its population and for violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.
The bill was presented by deputy Artem Turov, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Acquired citizenship can also be lost for desertion and failure to comply with orders during martial law or mobilization and for carrying out activities on the territory of the Russian Federation by a foreign or international non-governmental organization.
Turov explained that these norms are being introduced “taking into account the emerging political situation in the world, taking into account the growing threats to the internal security of our country, in order to promptly take measures against persons radically opposed to our country.”
The authority to make a decision on termination of Russian citizenship in such cases will be vested in the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs “due to the obviousness of the decision.”
The innovations were sharply criticized by United Russia deputy Konstantin Zatulin. He believes that they contradict the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which states that it is impossible to deprive citizenship without the will of a citizen.
“We divide citizens into those who are citizens by birth, but they can never be deprived of citizenship, even if they commit a crime. And everyone else. It is possible to deprive the citizenship of those who came to us along with Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, or who received citizenship in adulthood after moving to Russia because of Russophobia. Now, if he commits a crime under more than 70 articles of the Criminal Code, this will be grounds not only for punishing him, as should be the case for someone who has committed a crime, but also for depriving him of citizenship. For what? I don't understand. Because a person, if he has committed a crime, must be in prison, after which he leaves prison stateless. For what? Even if the court makes a decision and the person needs to be punished, let’s increase the punishment, but not deprive of citizenship,” Zatulin said.
He was also outraged that decisions to revoke citizenship would be made without a trial.
Speaker of Parliament Vyacheslav Volodin was extremely dissatisfied with Zatulin’s behavior.
“Konstantin Fedorovich, I said it before and I will say it again: the presidential bill has the concept of the bill, the goals and objectives that the bill solves. Therefore, when we talk about our support, it should be, first of all, that we should not confuse our “I” and our proposals with what is submitted to us for consideration. And when we start trying to dilute the law with all these amendments, which is of an agreed-upon nature, the committee worked, you, the first deputy chairman of the committee, there is no understanding here, but we definitely need to state our position,” Volodin said.
As a result, the law “On Citizenship” was adopted in the final reading with one abstention.
“Now everything has become clear, who is a parishioner, who is a visitor, and who is a passer-by,” Volodin commented on the vote.
The head of the Russian Cultural Center in Samara, Vladimir Patokov, believes that there is no point in raising panic over the adopted bill.
“This is another scare for those who have not yet had time to say everything they think. Russia didn’t issue almost a million passports last year just to start taking them away now,” he wrote in his tg channel.
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